For my human behavior in the social environment class I chose to use the ethnographic

paper. The purpose of this paper was to write a a case report about ones family of origin.
Students were to research relevant information pertaining to our family, culture, and ethnicity,
and compare it to the literature. Ethnographic techniques were used to analyze characteristics of
the family such as family organization, religious beliefs, deviance, and gender roles. Students
were then to identify how this impacts our values as a social worker. Finally, students had to
complete a genogram of their family.
This assignment completed core competency 7- Apply knowledge of human behavior in
the social environment. By completing the ethnographic paper I was able to use the HBSE
frameworks to assess my family model. This helped me to use the skills from the course to
understand the person and environment theory. This assignment also helped me to critique my
own understanding of family and how it impacts my social work values.
This was one of my favorite assignments from my BSW education. I learned a lot about
my understanding of the world and why I hold the beliefs I do by researching my own family.
This allowed me to connect with my family and research my own life. This was different then
other assignments because it made me research my own upbringing and use the strengths
perspective on my own life. It can be easy to do this for other clients, but doing it for myself was
more difficult. It taught me to not be so self critical and how to reflect on myself as I do clients.
Another thing I learned from this assignment was the categories that may be used to asses a
client or family. The assignment also taught me how to complete and use a genogram.