The Importance Of Intercultural Competence

ASSIGNMENT: Achieving competence as an interpersonal communicator in a diverse society is necessary to your personal and professional success. One way to enhance our understanding of interpersonal communication as a relationship-building activity is to engage in first hand dialogue with people from cultures other than your own. This assignment gives you the opportunity to engage in the dual perspective – honoring the perspective of the person with whom you are communicating as well as honoring your own perspective. You are also able to contrast your worldview with the perspective of someone with a different life experience than your

Cultural competency can be viewed as an ongoing journey of commitment and active engagement through the process of cultural awareness, knowledge, skills and cultural encounter (Coolen, 2012).Trust is the underlying purpose behind cultural competency in the development of health care provider and patient relationship. Health care professionals need to become more sensitive, respectful and attentive to the patients cultural beliefs and practices. Self-awareness is particularly important when communicating where barriers exists, unconscious prejudices may hinder the successful building of therapeutic relationships. In order to provide culturally sensitive pain management, a patients pain must be considered within the context of the individual’s

The first point in my theory is that you can better your skills as an interpersonal communicator by better understanding your own culture. DeVito states that there are. “several major cultural distinctions that are crucial for more effective communication” they are: individualism or collectivism, high or low context, high or low power distance, masculinity or femininity, high or low ambiguity tolerance, long or short term orientation, and indulgent or (p. 34). To be able to understand your or anyone else’s culture you must be able to understand the ways that these things affect communication. Once you understand the ways that you are oriented in these seven categories due to enculturation you can understand how you communicate and become a more effective

I have learned that it is important that educators  and health providers be trained on cultural competency to understand the population they are serving. Marks, Sims, and Osher (King, Sims, & Osher, n.d.) define cultural competency  as a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals and enables that system, agency, or those professionals to work effectively in cross–cultural situations" ( as cited in Cross et al., 1989; Isaacs & Benjamin, 1991). Health providers and educators should investigate demographic patterns or trends in the place where they live and work. This brings awareness of the types of cultures that they might come across when they are working with people. Organizations should integrate and implement policies that promote the value of  diversity, self-assessment, manage the dynamics of difference, acquire and institutionalize cultural knowledge, and adapt to diversity and the cultural contexts of communities they serve (Georgetown  University, 2004). Georgetown University (2004) also stresses that culture competency grows gradually and is always open for improvement.

In our today’s society, we are faced with multiple cultures that affect our ways of thinking, acting, and leaving. Cultural competency reflects one’s culture. Culture reflects the way the children are raised, their way of communicating, what is acceptable or not acceptable, the way they overcome challenges, their clothes, and how we go about medical treatment and so on. I know because I come from a very strong cultural background where it is considered bad to look at older people straight in the eyes while talking to them. Culture can be defined as “the learned and shared beliefs, values and life ways of a designated or particular group that are generally transmitted intergenerational and influence one’s thinking and action modes” (Leininger, 2002).

Some of the author’s major points are the lack of understanding of what cultural competence really means which is bringing confusion about ways it can be utilized in the social work field. The confusion of the utilization of cultural competence is leading to the lack of consensus concerning the effective training that providers should obtain and the population being served with the cultural competence skills lack clear description. According to the author, the most popular cultural competence intervention in the healthcare system is the cultural competency training which is for health care providers and the two approaches that have been utilized in creating the intervention are; the programs aimed at improving knowledge which is group specific,

focuses on intercultural competence, specifically cultural, religious, and world views (CRW), at each step in the ethical decision-making process (Luke, Goodrich, & Gilbride, 2013). For example, a counselor using this model, with the same dilemma of breaching student confidentiality, would recognize that within an ethical dilemma CRW elements exist, would identify CRW factors, such as a student’s cultural view, identify school policies and procedures, such as reporting of student drug use, consult with cultural experts to make sure CRW factors identified are accurate, list courses of action, analyze the course of actions with identified CRW factors, and finally select, record, and evaluate the course of action that meets the students cultural, religious, and world-views (Luke, Goodrich, & Gilbride, 2013). The IMED provides careful consideration of differing cultural, religious, and world-views of the students, counselor, and other systems (Luke, Goodrich, & Gilbride, 2013). Although both models are effective in providing methods to resolve ethical and legal issues when working with students, the IMED model would be better suited for a school counselor to use because of the diversity of the students within a school and the IMED step that specifies identifying relevant policies within a school system (Luke, Goodrich, & Gilbride, 2013), thereby providing the counselor to not only consider ethical and legal concerns but the unique policies of a school as well .

I believe I can improve my cultural competence by learning to understand the opinions of family members about the intervention process with older and elderly individuals. I enjoy helping and serving people, so it is hard for me to understand that some patients and families do not want to seek help. I need to learn to set my own opinions aside and be competent toward the wants and needs of the family.

Understand cultural competence and why is it important especially for that have a diverse workforce.

Today, we live in a culturally diverse society due to globalization. As our world grows, expands and become increasingly more interconnected, the need for effective interpersonal communication among differing cultures has become apparent. When people from different cultures interact with one another there is intercultural communication because different cultures create different interpretation and expectations about what is seen as competent behaviors that will enable the construction of shared meanings.

Breaking stereotypes: we live to be different and at the same time, attempt to fit in with the way society dictates. Usually a few people out of certain groups of people who live and do things differently than our standard perspective, we put those groups of people, (after judging only a few), in the proverbial nutshell known as stereotype. Stereotyping is an indication of one group of people exhibiting superiority over another group of people usually by some sort of negative connotation that undermines their values. Intercultural relationships helps to break down these type of negative actions allowing for a different perspective and a better understanding. (Trulymadly, 2014)

from the context of the personal culture of the client (Sue, Arrendondo & McDavis, 1994; Sue &

Orientation to Knowledge- The terms people use to explain themselves and the world around them

Intercultural communication is commonly explained as an interaction between people of 'different cultures whether defined in terms of racial, ethnic or socioeconomic differences.' Human communication consists of verbal and nonverbal messages (language and gestures) which are shaped by gender, social class or culture. Thus, what perimeters define the intercultural exchange and what primary messages do we need or try to convey?

Intercultural communication competence refers to the ability of an individual to adapt and communicate appropriately and effectively across a wide array of cultural contexts. That is to say, for an individual to be considered an intercultural communicator they must understand other’s cultures as well as they understand their own, and apply this understanding to communication (Chen 1-2). With the increasing diversity at the workplace, school and other social settings, it has become increasingly important to learn how to communicate with people from a diverse array of cultures. More importantly, adapting to a more effective intercultural communication competence model provides us with learning opportunities occasioned by the interaction with people from other backgrounds. The intercultural communication competence model comes with some key components including tolerance for uncertainty, self-knowledge, and motivation. The greatest and most important of these aspects is motivation. An individual must be willing to foster relationships with people from a different cultural background. If an individual lacks the willingness to promote intercultural relationships, then other aspects of the intercultural communication model become moot.