What is Cultural Competence? ____________________________________________________________________
Cultural competence describes the ability to work together, even though we come from the different cultures (National Center for Cultural Competence, n.d.). To understand cultural competence we need to know what culture is. Everyone is a part of culture, whether it is a national culture, a family culture, sports culture or work culture (OpenStax n.d.). Culture is comprised of society’s thoughts, beliefs, values, and traditions. It can include ideas, customs, styles of communicating, ways of interacting and views on roles and relationships (OpenStax n.d.). It is apparent cultures share
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Let’s look at some common verbal and nonverbal cues to understand how they may be interpreted by other cultures.
Tone of voice: The tone used when speaking to somebody of a different culture is critical. Based on the tone of voice used a person can convey respect, professionalism, and confidence to others. Whereas the utilization of a negative tone of voice using short, clipped words, sarcasm or sounding nervous can indicate the opposite that you are angry, lack respect for the person or group or are not confident in your knowledge of the topic you are discussing (O’Neill, n.d.).
Speak clearly and concisely: Speak clearly and at a natural pace using proper pronunciation. Do not raise your voice; a raised voice does not help someone understand you it just makes you louder (Wikihow, n.d.).
Avoid slang terms: Avoid using slang words or phrases when communicating with others. Slang terms are often misunderstood since they will not have the same meaning in other cultures (Davies,
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Several employees had specific dietary restrictions due to their religious or cultural beliefs such as keeping kosher, which means food are prepared in a specific way and cannot come into contact with other food types such as dairy. The failure to consider these other cultures showed a lack of consideration from the companies’ leadership.
Cross Cultural Relations –Important Skills__________________________________________________ ___
Given the culturally diverse the workplaces of the world, it’s never been more important to build, maintain and cultivate effective cross-cultural communication skills (Hodge, 2008). In addition to maintaining an awareness of verbal and nonverbal cues when communicating with people from all cultures, it’s important to practice patience, tolerance, and active listening to ensure successful cultural relations.
Having these skills, fosters a positive work environment builds relationships and contributes to the overall business success and job satisfaction (Hodge, 2008). Not to mention it’s the right thing to do given our country is founded on the very belief that we are a melting pot of many
Cultural Competence is a substantiated body of knowledge based of cultural “values held by a particular cultural group and the ability to cohesively adapt to individualized skills that fit the cultural context, thus, increasing relationships between employees, managements, and stakeholders, including patience and research subjects. Cultural competency is critical to reducing disparities and improving access to high-quality services, respectful of and responsive to the needs of diverse working conditions and individualized characteristics. The main focus emphasizes the understanding of cultural competence provide internal resources with skills and perceptions to thoroughly comprehend ones cultural attitude, increase the ability to multicultural diversity, and the ability to effectively interact with other cultures (Shelley Taylor, 2006, pp. 382-383), which is absent within the case study of Joe and Jill. Essentially speaking, principles of cultural competence are acknowledgement to the importance of culture in people's lives, respect for cultural differences, an...
Let’s begin with what is the Culture? It is defined as “the shared knowledge and schemes created by a set of people for perceiving, interpreting, expressing, and responding to the social realities around them" Lederach, J.P. (1995). Now let’s understand what cultural competence is. It can be defined as “the ability to honor and respect the beliefs, language, interpersonal styles, and behaviors of individuals and families receiving services, as well as staff who are
Culturally competent care is care that respects diversity in the patient population, and cultural factors that affect health and health care, such as language, communication styles, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs. The national CLAS Standards provide the blueprint to implement such appropriate services to improve health care in the United States. The standards cover many areas, such as leadership, workforce, governance; communication and language assistance; organizational engagement, continuous improvement, and accountability. (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2014).
Seeking to position lower socioeconomic status above racial/ethnic biases or vice versa is irresponsible to the goal of eliminating healthcare delivery differences at large. Both these are realities of a group of people who are not receiving the same level of care from the healthcare professionals although they exist within one of the most resource rich countries in the world, the United States. According to House & Williams (2000), “racism restricts and truncates socioeconomic attainment” (page, 106). This alone will hinder good health and spur on disparities as racism reduces the level of education and income as well as the prospect of better jobs. Blacksher (2008) cites the nation’s institutionalized racism as one of the leading factors
That communication should be ethical. Ethical cross cultural communication improves intergroup relations and self-awareness. If you do not have self-awareness, it will be hard to connect with other people in general not just people from a culture different from your own. I personally believe being self-aware and acknowledging your biases are the best ways to communicate with different cultures effectively and authentically.
“Cultural competence is the ability to engage in actions or create conditions that maximize the optimal development of client and client systems” (Sue & Sue, 2013, p. 49). Multicultural competence includes a counselor to be aware of his or her biases, knowledge of the culture they are evaluating, and skills to evaluate a client with various backgrounds (Sue & Sue, 2013). Client assessment involves gathering information pertaining to the client’s condition. Making a culturally responsive diagnosis involves using the DSM-IV-TR axis (Hays, 2008). Following the axis backwards is ideal to discovering the client’s diagnosis, understanding the client’s ADDRESSING outline will help to come to a closer resolution for a diagnosis.
Cultural proficiency is seeing the difference and responding effectively in a variety of environments. Learning about organizational and individual culture, in which one can effectively interact in a variety of cultural environments (p. 3). In simple terms in which educators are not only able to effectively work with diverse populations, but also believe that diversity adds positive value to the educational enterprise (Landa, 2011, p. 12).
It is important to present yourself as a strong confident communicator. If you do not take yourself seriously what makes you think other people will. In my life, I have found that I am a confident communicator most of the time. However, sometimes I doubt myself and jumble my words to create an unclear message.
There are many diverse ways in which people communicate depending on certain factors, such as who is speaking, who they’re talking to, what their purpose is and the mode. For example, people tend to use informal language and Non-standard English when speaking to their friends, whereas they will use more formal language in certain situations such as a job interview to show that they have a high status and are well-educated. Other factors which may affect the way we speak including our accent and dialect are; age, geography, heritage, gender, social class, occupation and sexuality.
Today’s management in the workforce is composed of all types of people verses thirty years ago when white males held a majority of upper-management positions in companies. These positions are now held by a mixture of ethnic back grounds and women who hold just as many if not more management positions then men. Just by looking at the changes in management demographics shows how important it is for people to understand cultural competency in the workplace. Dr. Roosevelt Thomas Jr. (1999) stated, “Diversity is the collective mixture of whomever we have in our workforce characterized by their differences and similarities” (p.11). Managers and supervisors must understand the characteristics of a diversity mature individual; they also need to be able to articulate the differences between affirmative action, managing diversity, understanding and valuing diversity to build skills that transforms awareness into productive and supportive workplace behaviors.
20). Learning to be sensitive and communicate across cultures is important for most organizations because it helps to move the company forward to accomplish its mission and vision. CCT helps to alleviate misunderstandings or miscommunications due to cultural differences and raises conscious awareness of any implicit
When evaluating myself on the Cultural Proficiency continuum, I’d place myself at “Cultural Competence” part on the continuum. This evaluation takes into account my experiences and practices while working in various schools and interacting with students of varied cultures, needs and ability levels as both a teacher and a learner. An effective educator is continually maintaining this dual role of teacher and life-long student in order to not grow stagnant within the classroom; this dynamic allows for growth along the continuum toward maintaining cultural proficiency.
One way to be a competent communicator is to be aware of things that can affect the way you communicate. For example, your environment. Personal experiences and your personal cultural background can affect the way you think about others, which can resultantly affect the way you communicate. While you might think something you do is right and ethical, while another person might find it wrong and unethical, or vice versa. This can make communication more of a challenge or impossible. One way to eliminate this problem is to try to be more understanding to someone’s background, to put yourself into their shoes and to understand that everyone has different backgrounds and different ways of perceiving what is right and wrong. It is important to remember that people from different backgrounds often can share enough common ground to make an effective relationship which can lead to effective communication.
The speaker must also be aware of his environment and the people he is speaking
Abstract: Globalization has made intercultural communication inevitable. Communicating with other cultures characterizes today’s business, classroom, and community. Technology, especially the internet, has increased the probability that whatever is documented online will be read by someone from another culture. Intercultural communication is of importance in any career field, thus the art of knowing how to communicate with other cultures should be a workplace skill that is emphasized. This is a conceptual paper whose purpose is twofold.