Multidimensional Contextual Practice: Diversity and Transcendence

This text offers a comprehensive perspective on human diversity. It addresses content regarding possible cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and social effects of stereotypes as well as the need for conscious change while honoring human complexities. A "Framework for Human Diversity and Transcendence" is introduced as a set of principles for approaching clients' experiences as contextual and multidimensional. Guadalupe and Lum present this framework in the first four chapters, following up with several chapters about practice with different population groups from well-known contributors across the helping professions disciplines.

This textbook begins by describing the overall framework of multidimensional contextual services, and then proceeds to discuss specific contexts and groups. Seventeen chapters by social workers and scholars in related disciplines address topics like diversity, well-being, professional competence, language, and spirituality, with consideration to their applications for work with clients of various sexes, sexual identities, and ethnicities. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Krishna L Guadalupe is an associate professor at California State University, Sacramento in the Division of Social Work. He has held clinical, administrative, and program development positions in various contexts including family counseling agencies, drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs, and hospice settings. Workshops, seminars, and publication topics include topics on human diversity, empowerment practice, constructivism, spirituality, grief, loss and growth, youth violence, modern and postmodern schools of thought, teaching and practicing without perpetuation of stereotypes, as well as human service program development, maintenance, and evaluation. Krishna's community and research interests include: on-going exploration into the mystery" of the human spirit, human diversity and its complexities, and program evaluation. "

Doman Lum is professor emeritus of social work at California State University, Sacramento. He was recently featured in CELEBRATING SOCIAL WORK: FACES AND VOICES OF FORMATIVE YEARS, a book commemorating social work and social work education. His previous texts include SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE AND PEOPLE OF COLOR: A PROCESS-STAGE APPROACH; MULTIDIMENSIONAL PRACTICE: DIVERSITY IN CONTEXT; CULTURAL COMPETENCE, PRACTICE STAGES AND CLIENT SYSTEMS: A CASE STUDY APPROACH; SOCIAL WORK AND HEALTH CARE POLICY; and RESPONDING TO SUICIDAL CRISIS. He has written articles on Asian Americans, health care delivery and health maintenance organizations, culturally diverse social work practice, suicide prevention, and pastoral counseling. Dr. Lum is a consulting editor for THE JOURNAL OF ETHNIC AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN SOCIAL WORK and ARETE, and has been on the board of directors and the Commission on Accreditation for the Council on Social Work Education. He received the Distinguished Recent Contributions in Social Work Education award from the Council on Social Work Education in 2000. He is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ, Northern California Conference.