Chapter 48: Cultural Competency
The information in this chapter is designed to better prepare students for the intellectual and societal challenges facing an increasingly diverse society.
Life in Quarantine
Since March 2020, the world has been turned upside down due to the covid-19 pandemic. The Life in Quarantine Project has invited people from all over the globe to share their personal stories about how the pandemic has affected them. To read about others’ experiences and share your own story, please see: http://liqproject.org/archive/.
Where Are You From?
Think about the question “where are you from?” What does it imply? Is it home? Is it where someone was born? Is it where their parents were born? Their grandparents? Is where someone is “from” connected with where they live? Have you ever assumed that someone of a certain ethnic background might come from a certain region?
Definitions of Cultural Competence
Cultural competence is the social awareness that everyone is unique, that different cultures and backgrounds affect how people think and behave, and that this awareness allows people to behave appropriately and perform effectively in culturally diverse environments.
Cultural competence is a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes and policies that come together in a system, agency or among professionals and enable that system, agency or those professions to function effectively. Five essential elements contribute to a system’s, institution’s, or agency’s ability to become more culturally competent which include:
- Valuing diversity
- Having the capacity for cultural self-assessment
- Being conscious of the dynamics inherent when cultures interact
- Having institutionalized culture knowledge
- Having developed adaptations to service delivery reflecting and understanding of cultural diversity
These five elements should be manifested at every level of an organization including policy making, administrative, and practice. Further these elements should be reflected in the attitudes, structures, policies and services of the organization[1].
As a college student, you are likely to find yourself in diverse classrooms, organizations, and – eventually – workplaces. It is important to prepare yourself to be able to adapt to diverse environments. Cultural competency can be defined as the ability to recognize and adapt to cultural differences and similarities. It involves “(a) the cultivation of deep cultural self-awareness and understanding (i.e., how one’s own beliefs, values, perceptions, interpretations, judgments, and behaviors are influenced by one’s cultural community or communities) and (b) increased cultural other-understanding (i.e., comprehension of the different ways people from other cultural groups make sense of and respond to the presence of cultural differences).”1
In other words, cultural competency requires you to be aware of your own cultural practices, values, and experiences, and to be able to read, interpret, and respond to those of