Moving Beyond Cultural Competency
Cultural competence became a buzzword in the 90s and early 2000s in HR circles looking to improve team dynamics among culturally diverse employees, or training staff how to serve diverse clients. In some fields, particularly in healthcare and law enforcement, this is often still a standard approach to topics on “diversity and inclusion.”
Cultural competence is the ability of individuals to respond with awareness and respect to people of all cultures, languages, classes, races, ethnic backgrounds, religions, and other diversity factors.
In theory, this sounds wonderful. People should be taught to value the worth of individuals and communities and recognize and celebrate their differences. However, there is an inherent assumption within cultural competency that one can become competent, that people and cultures can be boiled down into a memorizable list of values, beliefs, and behaviors.
This is problematic, because:
1. Culture is not static. It is constantly evolving just like each of us.
2. People do not fit in such simple boxes. We have multiple, intersectional aspects of our identity and therefore may adopt certain cultural behaviors but not others.
3. There are way too many cultural cues to identify and memorize. It would be an overwhelming and impossible task to ask any one individual to know everything about how to approach another specific individual based on their preferred cultural norms.
And then, of course, there’s the lingering question of how to assess this as a competency. Even assuming cultural competency were possible, how would you know you are doing it right or improving?
During the decade I spent working with and in refugee and immigrant communities, I was frequently asked for “cheat sheets” by well-meaning providers looking for answers in how to approach unfamiliar communities. They wanted simple, bulleted lists that would outline what they needed to know about specific groups so as not to offend them. I had to patiently and candidly reply that there was no such thing; that no list would ever be complete and that even with some kind of resource like it, it wouldn’t work the way they hoped.
Certainly, some degree of anecdotes can be helpful to start dialogue with people about how often we misunderstand one another. For example, I had some success working with police officers and teachers when explaining that in many Somali communities, particularly when being disciplined or when power dynamics are high, it is customary to lower your eyes to indicate respect and to intentionally not meet the “person of authority’s” eyes. This came as a shock to those providers who had a belief that looking away indicated lying or disrespect.
The challenge is that this information is limited in application. Some Somali people might not react that way, people from other communities might. There is the added complexity of neurodiversity in cultural behaviors as well. We cannot assume that because someone identifies (or we identify them) as being from a particular culture that they will follow all of the customs of that culture. It’s not a prescription for a person’s behavior or motivation. All it can do is open our minds to the possibility that we might be misreading a situation.
What we need is to fundamentally change how we approach others and the assumptions we make about how to engage with one another.
Moving beyond cultural competence requires cultivating self-awareness of our own biases, assumptions, and beliefs, and staying open-minded and curious about the behaviors of others. This is MUCH harder. It involves retraining our hard-wired brains to pause before making assumptions, and to develop communication skills that invite learning.
Instead of memorizing which cultures remove their shoes at the door of their homes, just remember that some people have customs when entering their home and ask. Ask people what pronouns they use, or how you should greet their family. While it may seem cumbersome or socially uncomfortable for you at first, this model of staying open, curious, and engaged with what others are telling you about themselves is the best way to truly avoid offense. It is also important to create an environment in which people feel comfortable and safe approaching you to let you know that something you did offended them. Finding out mistakes and asking for alternatives is the best way to get better.
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