sense of helplessness or a responsibility to seek solutions? Your own orientation toward social responsibility

The first observation of a social issue can be confusing for a young person. Witnessing extremes of wealth and poverty from one neighborhood to the next—or from one country to another—or hearing statistics related to literacy and school dropout rates in developed countries can be both shocking and baffling. While growing up, how did your community of family, friends, and teachers respond to social disparities? Were social issues ignored or confronted? Did you perceive a sense of helplessness or a responsibility to seek solutions? Your own orientation toward social responsibility may have been shaped, directly or indirectly, by the cultural norms of your community. Whether you feel burdened by the myriad social concerns in the world today or called to address them, your response stems, in part, from how you see yourself in the world in relation to others. In this Discussion, you explore the influence of personal values on your concept of social responsibility.