|
“Cultural
Competence” – The Importance of Knowing and Respecting
Ourselves and Others in Schooling
By Lynne Hamer, Ph.D, and Willie McKether, Ph.D
The Truth Contributors
We hear the words “cultural competence” bandied about, but
when it comes right down to it, do we have a shared
understanding of what this phrase means?
As academics trained in the folklorist tradition (Hamer) and
in anthropology (McKether), we tend to think a lot about
culture. While the concept of culture has well over 200
meanings, it all comes down to “a way of life,” including
important aspects of life such as how we dress, how we
worship, the food we eat, the music we listen to, how we
raise our families, and how we educate our young--just to
name a few.
Importantly, culture is something that changes over time
and, critically worth noting, it varies from one ethnic
group to another.
National, regional and local data show that the overwhelming
majority of teachers in all schools—public, private, and
charter—are white, female and middle class and thus bring
white, female and middle class cultures and worldviews to
their teaching.
Clearly, being a white female teacher with a middle class
background is not a bad thing, but data also show that it
can present challenges to these teachers when they are
assigned to teach children who come from a different ethnic
group and socio-economic class, and when they have not had
lots of practice thinking about culture and cultural
competence.
In conversations number two and number three, participants
in the “Community Conversations” group zeroed in on the
importance of cultural understanding or, even further,
cultural competence for students, parents, and especially
teachers. The group’s definitions of “cultural
competence” included:
·
“the need to show love and care”
·
“having the wherewithal and desire to get to know the
culture of people you are working with, then working to find
common ground by starting where they are”
·
“to have the skills to create relationships with students to
help them be successful”
·
“being able to function in the culture you are working in by
being knowledgeable about it”
·
“having empathy and sensitivity to others’ cultures”
Pretty great definitions. As a group, we also thought it was
important to be mindful that “culture” isn’t just black and
white: cultural groups are based not only on the construct
of race or ethnicity, which is often defined as including
language and religion as well as national origins. Thus in
Toledo, both African American and Latino cultural groups are
prominent, as well as groups strongly identifying as Irish,
Bulgarian, Hungarian, Syrian, Lebanese, Mexican, and many
others. Cultural groups also include those based on gender
identity, sexual orientation, shared disability, regional
origin and neighborhood.
As one participant very accurately pointed out, “There’s
more to culture beyond black and white. We automatically do
the black/white division when in this community there are
many others.”
Educator and educational theorist Gloria Ladson-Billings has
done more than most scholars to define cultural competence
and put it into practice, preparing teachers at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison in a program that could
serve as a model here in Toledo. We compared our
definitions to Ladson-Billings’s (2001) description of what
makes a teacher culturally competent:
Teachers who are prepared to help students become culturally
competent are themselves culturally competent. They…
•
must be aware of their own culture and its role in
their lives.
•
do not spend their time trying to be hip and cool and
‘down’ with their students.
•
know enough about students’ cultural and individual
life circumstances to be able to communicate well with them
•
understand the need to study the students because
they believe there is something there worth learning.
•
know that students who have the academic and cultural
wherewithal to succeed in school without losing their
identities are better prepared to be of service to others.
Interestingly, when we compared the Community Conversation
group’s definitions to Ladson-Billings’s, we found
participants were saying many of the same things in more
specific words. What is striking is that in both our
group’s definition and Ladson-Billings’s, “cultural
competence” isn’t defined superficially based on holidays
celebrated or ways of dressing, but on appreciating
ourselves and others as complex individuals, noticing what
makes us and them tick, and responding to those things.
We would
emphasize that definitions of cultural competence go beyond
applying to only teachers. Parents and students also have a
responsibility and obligation to become culturally competent
in habits and customs that increase opportunities for school
success.
At the
very least, becoming culturally competent requires us to
know our own histories, to be proud of our family culture,
and recognize that our history and culture are who we are.
We must find it interesting enough to study our background,
recognize it, think on it.
We must
recognize that as we move, make new acquaintances, start new
jobs, and learn new things, our own culture changes. And
then, knowing ourselves, we must find our fellow human
beings interesting enough to want to understand how their
history and culture shapes who they are. Once we know
ourselves, and open ourselves to knowing others, then we can
work together to create new and beautiful cultural
ways—including ways of “doing school.”
“Cultural competence” sounds technical and foreign. But in
actuality, it is what we are doing when we respect and
appreciate both ourselves and others, and then work together
toward common goals.
One Community Conversations participant summed it up
succinctly at the end of conversation number three. She
wrote, “I wanted to say that there are 25
people in this group who defined ‘cultural competence’ very
well. My question is, Why is it so many other people do not
understand cultural competence? I did not know what the
words meant but hope I have practiced it in my life.”
Readers might want to read more from the work we quoted by
Gloria Ladson-Billings (2001),
Crossing over to Canaan, which is
condensed in an online article in
Rethinking Schools, available at
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/15_04/Glb154.shtml
The authors of this column are both faculty at the
University of Toledo and facilitate the group “Community
Conversations for School Success.” Lynne Hamer is Professor
of Educational Foundations and Leadership and currently
directs UT@TPS, and Willie McKether is Associate Dean in the
College of Language, Literature and Social Science and
Associate Professor of Sociology/Anthropology. Everyone is
welcome to join in the Community Conversations, which take
place alternate Mondays, 6:30-8:00 pm, at the Kent Branch.
The next conversation will take place November 24.
|
