What is cultural competence? |

Introduction

When psychology is practiced, whether as a science or as a profession, it is practiced in a social and environmental context called culture. Culture is a characteristic of populations reflected in traditional beliefs, values, rituals, and other behaviors that are shared and transmitted from one generation to another. Culture is often thought of in terms of concepts such as ethnicity and norms. Ethnicity is generally described as a personal background characteristic connoting individual membership in a group that is defined by a common and distinctive linguistic, racial, national, and religious heritage. Norms are understood as the standard, average, or model behaviors, beliefs, or values people might have in a particular social grouping.

When psychologists speak of cultural competence, they are speaking about proper psychological practice that reflects an ongoing state of understanding, perceiving, and evaluating interactions among persons of differing cultural backgrounds. This can take place in therapeutic relationships, educational relationships, research endeavors, efforts to develop public policy, and even the way information is presented. These interactions also may take place among individuals, families, communities, institutions, and nations. As such, this means that cultural competence must extend to these other levels of understanding human behavior and interactions.

Cultural competence also involves awareness and knowledge that there are many types of differences based on culture. Such awareness might include the varying values and importance assigned to different holidays, personal traits, language, standards of dress, standards of beauty, and even cultural icons by members of a particular cultural group. Other important dimensions of culture include differences in terms of preferred behavior states, such as being active or passive, or the types of interpersonal values that are preferred, such as cooperation versus competition. Still others are found in terms of preferences for acquiring knowledge (through teaching, through experience, or both), how time is seen (as linear, as cyclical, or in terms of important events), and even for how reality is seen (objectively, subjectively, spiritually, or some combination of these ways of experiencing). This list is certainly incomplete, as cultures are constantly evolving. The things that make cultures distinct are dynamic in nature, and therefore achieving cultural competence is an ongoing process that requires constant self-awareness and self-evaluation.

Importance

A good understanding of one’s own culture and those of other individuals is important, as the points of interaction among cultures are where problems can develop. Bias, or an impartial or erroneous judgment or tendency to misperceive people or situations, may be activated by a lack of awareness of cultural issues. One familiar way cultural bias may present itself is through prejudice. Prejudice is a judgment based on a bias, and it is typically injurious or detrimental to the person misjudged and to the person doing the misjudging.

One particularly damaging type of prejudice that can result from a lack of cultural competence is racism, or prejudice based on race. Racism entails a belief that one’s own race is superior to others. It is mostly associated with prejudice. Racism and prejudice may show up between individuals or groups, causing harm to one or both parties. However, racism may also show up not only at the level of individuals but also at the institutional level. For instance, some might call racial profiling an institutional form of racism. In health care, as an example, this might be evidenced in the form of individuals of a particular ethnic or cultural background being refused access to important health care services because of ill-informed beliefs about their need for such services, or it might develop because health care providers are not properly educated as to how different problems might present in culturally unique ways. Such a lack of identification would then result in a lack of referral for treatment services. The root cause of a lack of multicultural education at the point of identifying problems might be interpreted as a form of cultural incompetence at the individual and institutional levels. Some might go as far as to designate such consequences as a result of institutional racism. To some, this might seem an extreme judgment because the problems may result from a lack of awareness rather than deliberate discrimination, but this is at the heart of the concept of cultural competence: encouraging those in the social sciences and social services areas to always be on the alert for such potential problems.

Context

In 2012, the Pew Research Center projected that by the year 2050, changes in both immigration and birthrates among individuals of different cultural backgrounds will mean that just under half of US residents will be of a non-Hispanic white racial background. Global communications are also increasing, as more forms of media become available to a wider audience through the Internet, television, and radio. Additionally, definitions of culture extend beyond race and ethnicity; cultures can be defined in terms of characteristics such as age, gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. As a result, the concept of cultural competence is likely to grow in importance as interactions among diverse cultures are likely to increase and foster as many opportunities for miscommunication as communication. Given this, cultural knowledge must be incorporated into policy development that supports clear communication among culturally diverse populations.

Bibliography

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