Table 5: (Multi) Cultural Competence and Cultural Humility (Multi) Cultural Competence
Cultural Humility
Perspectives on culture
● Acknowledges layers of cultural identity. ● Recognizes the danger of stereotyping.
● Acknowledges layers of cultural identity. ● Understands that working with cultural differences is an ongoing, lifelong process. ● Emphasizes understanding self as well as understanding other clients. ● Assumes an understanding of self, communities, and colleagues is needed to understand clients. ● Requires humility, recognition, and understanding of power imbalances within the client–counselor relationship. ● Ongoing critical self-reflection ● Lifelong learning ● Institutional accountability and change ● Addressing and challenging power imbalances
Assumptions
● Assumes the problem is a lack of knowledge, awareness, and skills to work across lines of difference. ● Individuals and organizations develop the values, knowledge, and skills to work across lines of difference.
Components
● Knowledge ● Skills ● Values ● Behaviors
Stakeholders
● Client ● Practitioner ● Institution ● Larger community
Practitioner
● A “young concept” ● Empirical data in early stages of development ● Conceptual framework still being developed
Critiques
● Suggests an end point ● Can lead to stereotyping ● Applied universally rather than based on a specific client’s experience(s) ● Issues of social justice not adequately addressed ● Focus on gaining knowledge about specific cultures
Note : Adapted from “Mastery to accountability: Cultural humility as an alternative to cultural competence,” by Fisher- Borne, M., et al., 2015. Social Work Education, 34 , 165-181. Multicultural and cultural competency frameworks inevitably lead to stereotyping various racial and ethnic groups by attempting to define and categorize entire ethnicities by a few cultural traditions and practices. Examples of such stereotypes include the following: Asian Americans push cultural experiences and identities and view the client as the expert on this topic (Gallardo, 2014). Multicultural counseling and cultural competency
frameworks also neglect the intersecting dimensions of diversity. By focusing on ethnic and racial groups, these models ignore the complexity of group and individual identity. Complex identities include many dimensions of diversity, such as race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, LGBTQ status, dis/ability, religion, regionality (e.g., southern, northern, western, eastern regions of the U.S.), age, gender, and so on. These dimensions of diversity intersect in many ways. The intersectionality of a multitude of sides that are oppressed or marginalized identities within one individual may result in experiencing much discrimination (Rosenthal, 2016). On the other hand, the intersection of a multitude of privileged dimensions within one individual may result in experiencing multiple oppressions; the intersectionality of dimensions of diversity results in an infinite number of individual identities that are difficult, if not impossible, to categorize (Rosenthal, 2016). The cultural humility framework recognizes and acknowledges the layers and dimensions of diverse identities, encouraging counselors to self-reflect and understand the potential for many intersecting personal identities. Correspondingly, counselors assuming cultural humility ask clients questions regarding their intersecting diverse identities (Gallardo, 2014). Multicultural counseling and cultural competency frameworks have been further criticized for focusing on having the counselor gain knowledge regarding differing
their children to succeed in school and to be obedient to adults, Latina/o men have “machismo,” and African Americans are assertive (Lum, 2011). Although the intent to understand the diversity within the U.S. is meant to be helpful to counselors, it often strengthens the status quo (i.e., “White” as the norm and all other racial and ethnic groups as outside that norm). Because of the desire to describe various racial and ethnic standards, multicultural counseling and cultural competency frameworks overlook the diversity within ethnic and racial minority groups and White groups (Lum, 2011). For instance, Asian American and Latina/o categorizations lump together individuals from a wide array of countries, suggesting, for example, that if you are Chinese American, Vietnamese American, or Japanese American, you are similar because you are Asian. Categorizing whole regions of the world as similar is likely to present problems, as individuals from a wide array of countries are very diverse. Moreover, individuals and groups within groups have a great deal of intragroup diversity. For example, a Chinese American family that has been in the U.S. for five generations is likely to be quite different from a Chinese American family that immigrated to the U.S. during the last decade. Cultural humility suggests that counselors should not assume cultural knowledge about clients; instead, they should ask clients questions about their
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