MSW 511 Week 6 Structural Oppression Analysis Example

Structural Oppression Analysis of Three Health Center Encounters: Each Examined Between Two People, Within the Agency's Own Procedure and Under the Law or Funding Rule Behind It, Covering Disability Access, Religious Scheduling and Language

Student Name

Chamberlain University

MSW 511: Social Work in a Multicultural Society

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Structural Oppression Analysis of Three Health Center Encounters: Each Examined Between Two People, Within the Agency's Own Procedure and Under the Law or Funding Rule Behind It, Covering Disability Access, Religious Scheduling and Language

Why Three Levels

An encounter can look like one worker's mistake, an agency's policy or a law's effect. This analysis takes three encounters from my placement and examines each at all three levels, because the same harm usually runs through all of them.

Encounter 1: Disability and Access

Between two people: a patient who uses a wheelchair waited 25 minutes at the front door because the automatic opener was broken and the front desk did not see the patient. The receptionist apologized.

Agency procedure: the opener had been broken for three weeks; the maintenance request was marked low priority because "the side door works." The side door is unmarked and opens onto a gravel lot.

Law and funding: the Americans with Disabilities Act requires that public accommodations remove barriers where readily achievable and maintain accessible features. The procedure treated a working accessible entrance as optional. The harm was not one receptionist's inattention; it was a priority list that ranked access below other repairs.

Encounter 2: Religion and Scheduling

Between two people: a family declined a Sunday morning vaccination clinic the center had organized for Marshallese patients, and a staff member said, "They said they wanted easier access."

Agency procedure: the clinic was scheduled on Sunday because staff overtime was cheapest then; no one asked the church health committee, which would have said that Sunday morning is worship.

Law and funding: the center's outreach grant pays for weekend hours but not for planning meetings with community groups, so the planning that would have caught the conflict was not funded.

Encounter 3: Language

Between two people: a nurse used a patient's 14-year-old nephew to interpret a diabetes visit because the phone line had no Marshallese interpreter.

Agency procedure: the center contracts with one phone interpreting company, which has Marshallese interpreters only on weekday mornings.

Law and funding: Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, as applied through Executive Order 13166, requires federally funded programs to make services usable for people who speak little English (Exec. Order No. 13166, 2000). The contract does not meet that standard for afternoon and evening visits.

One Argument From Three Encounters

In each case, the person-to-person moment looked like a small lapse, and the worker involved was not hostile. The harm came from procedures shaped by costs and funding rules that treated access, faith and language as extras. The NASW Code asks social workers to act to expand choice and opportunity for all people, with special regard for oppressed groups (National Association of Social Workers, 2021). At this center that means working on the priority list, the grant and the contract, not only on staff manners.

What I Can Do From a Student Role

Report the door to the manager in writing, ask the church committee to review next year's clinic calendar and add the interpreter gap to the center's language access plan review in January.

References

Exec. Order No. 13166, 65 Fed. Reg. 50121 (2000).

National Association of Social Workers. (2021). Code of ethics of the National Association of Social Workers. https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English