Cultural Competence and Humility

Cultural Competence and Humility

Cultural competence is an individual’s ability to effectively work, interact, and establish valuable relationships with people from different cultural backgrounds (Unl.edu, 2022). Lekas, Pahl, and Fuller (2020) define cultural competence as a way of attending to the culturally diverse backgrounds of patients, giving people-centered care, and minimizing health differences. In contrast, cultural humility is the process of lifelong inquiry and reflection that entails being mindful of cultural and personal biases and mindfulness and sensitivity to vital cultural concerns of other people (Diller, 2018). So, how do cultural competence and humility compare?

First, cultural competence emphasizes the capability of a person or an employee to work respectfully with individuals from different cultures while being aware of their own cultural biases. In contrast, cultural humility stresses one’s ability to identify one’s limitations to avoid assumptions about other people’s cultures (Diller, 2018). The second difference is that cultural competence is a practice of self-critiquing and self-reflection, as well as matching authorities in interactions. On the other hand, cultural humility is a life-long process that needs self-awareness and dedication. Cultural humility involves accepting that one is unknowledgeable and is ready to learn from the sick and their familiarities while being mindful of their embeddedness in their own values. As cultural competence believes in skill mastery, cultural humility believes in an interpersonal and intrapersonal strategy that nurtures individual-centered care (Lekas, Pahl & Fuller, 2020). Both emphasize the need for self-reflection on other people’s cultures to avoid assumptions about different cultures.

I will use these two concepts in multicultural human service in the following ways. While interacting and working with others, I will use cultural humility to ensure I self-reflect and be mindful of the cultures of the people we are working with so that I do not make assumptions about them. On the other hand, I will use cultural competence to ensure I work effectively by minding an individual’s culture while serving them. Throughout the course, I have learned the significance of embracing cultural diversity to work effectively with people from diverse cultural backgrounds. Therefore, in the future, I will embrace cultural diversity by always being open-minded and engaging people in discussions so they can share opinions to avoid cultural differences or assumptions.

References

Diller, J. V. (2018). Cultural diversity: A primer for the human services. Cengage Learning.

Lekas, H. M., Pahl, K., & Fuller Lewis, C. (2020). Rethinking cultural competence: Shifting to cultural humility. Health services insights, 13, and 1178632920970580.

Unl.edu. (2022). Cultural Competence: An Important Skill Set for the 21st Century. Extension publications. Retrieved 19 September 2022, from https://extensionpublications.unl.edu/assets/html/g1375/build/g1375.htm.

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Providing appropriate treatment to a culturally diverse set of clients is an important skill set to have.

Prior to beginning work on this learning activity,

Read the following in your textbook:
Chapter 2 (read-only pp. 11–29)
Chapter 5 (read-only pp. 109–117)
Chapter 6 (read-only pp. 121–127; 134–142)
Chapter 9 (read-only pp. 214–231)
Read Cultural Competence: An Important Skill Set for the 21st Century (Links to an external site.).
Read Rethinking Cultural Competence: Shifting to Cultural Humility (Links to an external site.).
In a one- to three-page paper,

Define cultural competence and cultural humility in your own words.
Compare and contrast cultural competence and cultural humility.
Discuss how you will use these two concepts when working in a multicultural human service setting.
Describe how the information presented in the course so far has impacted you and the work you will do in the future.
The Cultural Competence and Humility journal

Must be one to three double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages).
Carefully review the Grading Rubric (Links to an external site.) for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.