The world has millions of people of diverse cultural backgrounds. They have their own beliefs, food habits, art forms, and dressing styles. Since ancient times, these people are coming across each other and are exchanging their ideas. However, sometimes people turn hostile because of their cultural prejudices. This tendency to judge the other people based on the standards of his or her own culture is cultural bias. It is a major hindrance in performing a cross-cultural research. A person who is culturally biased ignores the differences that exist between his own culture and other cultures. Cultural bias can stereotype a culture. When a person says his cultures superior to others, he is undoubtedly culturally biased. Such a person never appreciates …show more content…
While some people appreciate the diversity existing between their and other person’s culture, there equally exists some people who looked down upon other cultures.
It is high time that people learn about different cultures to have a thorough understanding of the same and thus achieve cultural competency. This is necessary for educators, healthcare givers, attorneys, organizations and all to live in a cross-cultural world without any emotional or physical conflict. Most organizations have their presence in multiple countries and have business relations with people of different cultural groups. So, for a successful business also, cultural competency is the demand.
Steps to minimize cultural bias
If one achieve cultural competency, the cultural bias will minimize itself. However, one can follow some steps to get the desired results. The foremost of which is building awareness about the beliefs, attitudes, and thought patterns of people of other cultures.
Many corporate are now conducting training on cross-cultural communication for their workforce. In the US, opinions of cultural experts are invited before taking a judicial decision. In short, every person or organization can make small steps to minimize this
For us to develop cultural competence we need to have a level expertise, knowledge and attributes. When I mention Expertise I am referring to professional skills such as, being able to communicate correct information for culturally different people and their communities, the skill to candidly discuss racial and ethnic issues and to react to culturally based signs, the skill to understand the meaning that traditions/culture has for each person, Interviewing skills that help to understand and accommodate the role of language in a person’s culture and the skill to use the idea of empowerment on behalf of culturally different people and communities.
People of different cultures can be extremely alike in several different ways, so we need to put an end to thinking our culture is the more dominant
Cultural competence can be defined as: “the ability to manage cultural diversity (different cultural characteristics) in a way that allows diversity to contribute to the effectiveness of an organization rather than create misunderstandings and conflict” (Borrego & Johnson III, 2012). Cultural Competency provides a plan or set of policies that enables an organization to serve its culturally di¬verse populations more effectively. With continued increase in population diverse cultural differences become significant. Culturally diverse differences can play a critical role in public service delivery as well as continued or increased citizen trust and participation in government. Cultural differences among local communities have led some local governments to adapt with efforts for increasing their cultural competency (Benavides & Hernandez, 2007).
The United States has become increasingly a culturally diverse society. The understanding of cultural relativism in a multicultural working environment can be of a great importance to the success or failure of an organization. What is cultural competency? Before we explain it, let’s take a step back and analyze culture, cultural diversity, and Cultural relativism.
I understand the term “cultural competence” is the ability to naturally navigate through (social) environments taking into consideration people’s different cultural views and promote the views of others – not to the detriment of others.
First, that culture is fluid meaning it is constantly changing. Therefore, cultural competency can never be permanently conquered. Second, “the acquisition of a sufficient level of competence required to engage effectively with diversity and difference involves more than merely understanding and valuing other cultures; yet this is often how cultural competence is interpreted” (Jani, et. al, 2016, p. 314). And third is the assumption that culture has to be a uniformly positive phenomenon (Jani, et.
Cultural competence can be thought of as the capacity to understand, value, and cooperate with people from differing backgrounds and cultures and belief systems other than one’s own. (Eyck & Busch, 2012) acknowledged
Culture builds up and shapes how people view the world and the people in it. It determines how we judge and view the way others act, look, and even how they think. In the texts “Where worlds collide”, “An Indian Father’s Plea”, and “Two Kinds”, it is shown that a person’s views of others and the world are solely determined by their culture.
As American labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez expressed, “Preservation of one's own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.” Respecting everyone’s culture is a necessity, no matter their ethnic background, or if they stand out in society. Language, customs, food, and religion are all parts of a culture everyone possesses. All individuals have a viewpoint, a perspective of what cultures the world around them is compromised of. The culture in every human influences how they view the world around them by hiding one’s own culture, giving people biased views of others’ ethnicities, and weighing down the minority groups.
This article examines current literature to consider whether or not teachers' cultural and ethnic biases may influence the results of standardized behavior rating scales used to measure student functioning. The authors briefly mention research regarding construct bias and predictive bias related to behavior rating scales. Their study, however, focuses on research related to rater bias. The authors chose to examine rater bias in terms of cultural and ethnic biases for this study because they believed incorporating more variables at this early stage of research would confuse more than clarify. For this study, cultural bias was defined as systematic error attributed to differences in the rater's cultural expectations and beliefs. Ethnic bias
However, when faced with the broad but detailed brush strokes of a clutter of different cultures, I found that the metaphor that had invaded my headspace and grounded itself into being a belief was incorrect. Cultures are not made to be consolidated for consumption. Rather, they are to be enjoyed not for their simplicity, but for their complexity. The metaphor that serves to boil down is wrong. My concept of cross-cultural interaction was shattered from a sheet of smooth glass. The jagged pieces were stained by the colors of differences, and then artfully pieced together into a mosaic of understanding that I now strive to be worthy
Socio-cultural competencies for a successful professional manager can be define as the expertise and experience, knowledge (declarative, procedural, functional and meta-cognitive) also an assortment of basic cognitive competencies, such as memory and deductive reasoning (Richard, 2011). Socio-cultural competencies refer to an ability to interact effectively with people of different cultures, especially for those organizations whose employees work with persons from different cultural backgrounds. In other word, it shows the values, norms, and traditions that affect how individuals of a certain group think, interact, behave, and make judgments about their world. The Cultural Competency is immense important for all organization whose staff have desire to develop and improve. The cultural competency questions
The developed assumptions about other cultures or about a particular cultural group may bias our perception of other cultures. These assumptions are known as cultural bias.
Competency should be mentioned in organization’s policies, practices, missions and philosophy. The importance of across cultural competence is increasing in many areas
The term Cultural competency is one of the key principles in the Early Years Learning Framework. Cultural competency simply means respecting the diverse culture present in our country. It is important for all educators in education and care settings to understand and appreciate the cultural diversity that exist around them. Supporting children to explore the uniqueness of their culture and individuality and at the same time appreciating and accepting others with diverse culture into their midst is what cultural competency emphasis on.