Part of community engagement is understanding other cultures. It is important for all community engagement facilitators to understand and appreciate different cultures. It is imperative our police, fire, EMS, local and city government officials, as well as other individuals involved in community relations be experts when it comes to understanding and accepting individuals from other cultures.
Many organizations—both government and private—mandate periodic or ongoing cultural competency training. The term “cultural competency” is vague and people tend to think that going to a Chinese restaurant for lunch would be considered as aspect of cultural competency.
In a previous life, I did considerable research and practical work on the topic of cultural competency. I wanted to provide a top five list for teaching or facilitating cultural competency training:
- Culture does not just equal ethnicity;
- Levels of competency are misleading and redundant;
- The best method is through interaction and partnership;
- Our culture shapes everything we do, say, and think; and,
- Learn cultural humility.
Culture does not just equal ethnicity. Our society has so conditioned the word “culture” to indicate ethnicity. People think of “cultural food” as ethnic food. People visit cultural fairs to see how other, different-ethnicity people groups live.
While ethnicity is a component of culture, there are many other aspects that make culture important to people. As I will discuss in another point, culture is ingrained in us. It describes our view of how we respond to individuals who are late to meetings or how much we eat. It is a component of our holiday activities–how and when we give gifts to people. Therefore, culture is not just ethnicity—it is so much more.
Levels of competency are misleading and redundant. Many of the cultural competency trainings available subdivide people into three or more groups. There is always a group of individuals who are fully competent — people who understand the foundational core of being open to different cultures. There is always a group of people who are ignorant to other cultures. And, there is always a culturally obstinate group—a group of individuals who refuse to accept any other culture.
These groupings are fantastic, but it is misleading or redundant to place people in groups. I personally know people who excel at being culturally competent in several areas except when it comes to their beliefs. That is, people who are open to understanding other people groups and cultural practices, but are offended that there is interracial relationships. It’s good to know general categories, but these should be taught as being a guide and not a collective bin or designation for people.
The best method is through interaction and partnership. There are numerous studies that demonstrate the best way to learn understanding and acceptance of people different than ourselves is to spend time with them.
In Kansas City, there is a group called the Crescent Peace Society. On a regular basis, they host “Meet a Muslim” meetings periodic around the KC area. I have attended one of these—it was incredible to see the interest of the community in finding out more about Islam and the mindset of Muslims. And, my perception was that the non-Muslim community who attended found out that they have more in common with Muslims than they originally thought.
Our culture shapes everything we do, say, and think. There was a training recently that talked about hidden rules among classes. Many of these aspects are part of our deep culture — things that go beyond just superficial. How we understand time or think about food can be a cultural thing.
We sometimes look at the manifestation of different cultural traits. For instance, there is a culture that is thought of as being generally late to every event. Is that culture? Maybe. It is likely more the manifestation of this particular culture’s view of time. Maybe this culture sees an event’s time as being a suggestion. Maybe this other culture values taking care of the person more than meeting others at a certain time. Who knows? Either way, it is important to understand that culture shapes most everything we do.
Learn cultural humility. The Dunning-Kruger effect is a social psychological phenomena when individuals with little skills or knowledge believe they have an enhanced level of skills. It is only until the point when they start to learn more, they realize they do not know as much as they think they do.
Anyone who knows me personally know that I would never, ever suffer from this effect. I definitely am always aware of my level of understanding on every topic. 🙂 This, however underscores the need for culturally competent or experienced people to remember they are always needing to learn. While I may understand a certain culture really well, I will likely never be able to fully understand every aspect of it.
As we move forward as a society–as Americans continue to embody the “one from many” (e pluribus unum) mentality–it is important for us to continue to be able to understanding AND accepting other cultures. Hopefully, these five suggestions will help in your quest.
See the full article here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cultural-competency-training-five-things-consider-darin-challacombe?published=t
You must be logged in to post a comment.