The Glass Castle, in This Analysis of the Book the Writer Reflects on the Social Issues That Face the Walls Family

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The Glass Castle The Glass Castle The Glass Castle is based on the erratic life story of Jeannette Walls and her family. While reading the book I was impressed at how the Walls children handled situations that they found themselves in, and as a parent I was amazed at some of the decisions which the Walls parents made. There are many theories that can be used to analyze this family and the experiences they encountered. This paper will cover the ecological, systems, strengths (extrinsic and intrinsic), and psychological perspectives, as well as look at child abuse/neglect, and the resilience of individuals in this family as it relates to social work ethics and values. The ecological perspective can be traced back to biological theories which explain how organisms adapt to their environments (Hutchison, 2013). It is often said that we are a product of our environment; we live what we learn. As we look at the Walls family that statement may not apply to all the family members. In social work practice, applying an ecological approach can be best understood as looking at persons, families, cultures, communities, policies, and to identify and intervene upon strengths and weaknesses in the transactional processes between these systems: complex relationships between living things and their environment, mutual dependence. Each part needs each other; each takes from and gives to the environment (Campbell, 2013). The ecological perspective has four interdependent categories: Microsystems which are systems that involve direct face-to-face contact between members such as families, classroom, peer groups and neighborhoods. Mesosystems are networks of Microsystems of a given person; such as child home and school – home system and school. Exosystems link microsystems and larger institutions that affect the system such as the family system and parent’s workplace.
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