The birth of a well-adjusted individual in neoliberal times: Self-esteem discourse and its implications on bodies of color

dc.contributor.advisorMcGrath, Susan
dc.contributor.authorZhang, Heidi
dc.date.accessioned2017-02-15T16:17:38Z
dc.date.available2017-02-15T16:17:38Z
dc.date.issued2016
dc.descriptionSOWK 6100, Award Nominated Practice-based Research Paper, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, School of Social Work, York University, Year 2014
dc.description.abstractThe concept of “self-esteem”, identified within sociology and psychology fields as self-concept, reflects a person’s overall subjective emotional evaluation of his or her own worth. Ever since its inception into academic literature in 1890 by the American psychologist William James, it has experience and continues to experience an important scientific status in finding out more about the human mind, human emotions and human behaviour. Self-esteem literature and research has also worked its way into social work research and practical applications especially when working with marginalized clients whom social workers wish to integrate smoothly into society either through mood regulations, behaviour interventions or other strategies such as family settlement and employment. From a post-structural and explicitly Foucauldian framework that also analyzes from post-colonial and critical race theories, I argue there is little literature within contemporary social work that looks at the problematic ways self-esteem as a dominant discourse organizes and privileges certain beliefs about the body as normal and healthy while negatively viewing others as harmful to selfhood and to the greater society. This research attempts to examine the ways self-esteem as a dominant discourse facilitates a reproduction of an Eurocentric and colonialist knowledge base that can have both discursive and material consequences for racialized clients participating in psycho-social educational programs within mental health agencies as a part of the current recovery model.
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/32827
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectself-esteemen_US
dc.subjectbodies of coloren_US
dc.subjectneoliberalen_US
dc.subjectwell-adjusted individualen_US
dc.subjectsocial work practiceen_US
dc.titleThe birth of a well-adjusted individual in neoliberal times: Self-esteem discourse and its implications on bodies of color
dc.typeGraduate research paper

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