'Australia Day'/ 'Invasion Day' - Begin campaign on education- Report
Task description
In this assessment, you will imagine you are a social psychologist working in a community development team within a not-for-profit organisation. The organisation’s name is CBO Australia, and it has offices and staff spread across all States and Territories of Australia - the head office is in Brisbane (where you are based). The organisation’s purpose is to address important social issues within Australian communities (including metropolitan and regional areas) by implementing evidence based programs.
As part of your team’s annual planning process, you have been asked to identify one social issue that you believe your organisation should begin to address in the coming year and present an 'Issue Brief' (a short business style report) to your team which describes how a social psychological concept/principle is likely to underpin the issue and, therefore, represents a target for influencing change. Through synthesis of appropriate research, you will suggest that the strong association between the social psychological concept and the social issues means that it represents a pertinent target for change and for program development by your team
What you need to do ?
STEP 1: IDENTIFY A RELEVANT SOCIAL ISSUE: To identify a relevant social issue for the focus of your Issue Brief, you should find an article in a reputable Australian source such as newspapers, magazines or websites. This article should speak to the relevance/importance of the social issue in contemporary Australian society. The article should not come from an academic journal. The social issue that you choose may be relevant to a single community or geographical area or to Australia more broadly (remember, your organisation covers all States and Territories). For example, the issue may be relevant to metropolitan areas or extend to regional areas of Australia as well. Alternatively, you may select an issue which is only relevant to regional Queensland or a particular regional community. The issue could also be relevant only to a specific target group (e.g., youth in regional communities).
STEP 2: SELECT ONE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPT/PRINCIPLE: A key aim of the task is to demonstrate your ability to bridge the gap between theoretical concepts/principles based in social psychology and their use to understand and address social issues. While there may be many social psychological concepts that could be associated with the social issue you have chosen, you are required to select only one for your report. The social psychological concept that you choose must be STRONGLY related to the social issue you have chosen to focus on. The strength of the relationship should be evident within your report and within your argument. As a simple example, you may choose binge drinking by young adults in rural communities (as the social issue) and focus on subjective norms as the social psychological concept that is influencing the social issue and which, therefore, represents a logical focal point for influencing change.
STEP 3: WRITE A SHORT BUSINESS STYLE REPORT: Within the Issue Brief, you will briefly describe the social issue and define the social psychological concept. You will then use current and relevant research/literature to explain how the social psychological concept/principle underpins or is strongly associated with the social issue, drawing attention to the fact that, if this social psychological concept influences the social issue, then it also represents a target for addressing the issue or influencing positive change. This literature/research based section should be the most substantial part of your report. You will be highlighting for your team members the importance of this social psychological concept as a basis for program development in the coming year (remember, you are providing the report to guide your team's planning). Please note that the task does NOT require you to actually formulate a program/initiative to address the issue. You may, however, include intervention based research which demonstrates the success of programs/strategies which have focused on the social psychological concept/principle. While you may use one review article (e.g., systematic review or meta analysis), most of your sources should be scholarly research articles pertaining to independent studies and you should capture recent literature.
We understand that you will only be able to ‘hypothesise’ the social psychological concepts underlying the social issue in the Australian context (you may not know for certain without undertaking Australian research). However, you should consider the literature thoroughly and select a social psychological concept for which there is a strong evidence base demonstrating it's relationship to the social issue.
Your hypothetical work team is comprised of a variety of practitioners with expertise in social work and community development but you are the only staff member with a psychology background. As your team members' knowledge of social psychology and research is quite limited, you should adjust your writing accordingly.
Additional information and guidance will be provided in the tutorial program.
