Cultural Competence

Cultural Competence

Self awareness is only the beginning of multicultural awareness and competence. Many variables are included in cultural competence. Speci?cally, three critical characteristics have been identi?ed as essential for cultural competence: scienti?c mindedness, skills in dynamic sizing, and pro?ciency with a particular cultural group .

Scienti?c mindedness requires forming and testing hypotheses, rather than making faulty assumptions and/or conclusions about the status of ethnoculturally different Multicultural and Diversity Issues

Counselor as a Cultural Being

Being aware of yourself as a cultural being has been described as a prerequisite for competent multicultural counseling. In fact, the ?rst multicultural competency discussed by D. W. Sue, Arredondo, and McDavis states, “Culturally skilled examiners have moved from being culturally unaware to being aware and sensitive to their own cultural heritage and to valuing and respecting differences” .

For this activity, you should work with a partner.

A. Describe yourself as a cultural being to your partner. What is your ethnic/cultural heritage? How did you come to know your heritage? How is your heritage manifested in your life today? What parts of your heritage are you especially proud of ? Is there anything about your heritage that you are not proud of ? Why? B. What do you think constitutes a “mentally healthy” individual? Can you think of times when there are exceptions to your understanding of this? C. Has there ever been a time in your life when you experienced racism or discrimination? Describe this experience to your partner. What were your thoughts and feelings related to this experience? D. Can you relate a time when your own thoughts about people who are different from you affected how you treated them? Would you do anything differently now? E. How would you describe the “American culture”? What parts of this culture do you embrace? What parts do you reject? How does your internalization of American culture impact what you think constitutes a “mentally healthy individual”? At the conclusion of the activity, take time to re?ect and possibly make a few journal entries about anything you may have learned about your cultural identity.