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Questions on Culturally Competent Behavior
By Tobi Kibel Piatek | February 16, 2009
Lesson 5 – about Cultural Competence resulted in lively discussion. The discussion also raised some interesting and challenging questions. We (my students and I) need answers – so I will start by posting the questions and hope for the best.
Questions:
1. “I think it is a wonderful idea to learn more about other’s cultures so we can treat all children in a way that they feel safe and protected but I’d like to throw out a question. How far do we go with this idea that we need to be culturally competent to interact with kids and families? Our reading and resources … talked about comfort with “eye contact” being different in some cultures. There are so many different cultures in the United States are we supposed to expect every teacher to learn all the appropriate gestures for each culture? I am not saying that I agree or disagree but this was brought up when I discussed the topic with some faculty.”
2. “… When considering intercultural communication, there seems to be an expectation that people of a culture represent everyone. I know this is not true, but I am not always clear on what is the appropriate way to behave – especially because I always worry that an individual may not be representative of their culture, but I do not want to do the wrong thing. Taking an example from the article, if I have an African American student in my classroom and I “break in” on a conversation this could potentially be offensive or uncomfortable to that student.
I felt the same way about the eye contact rule from the article. I seriously distrust my ability to know if someone is a “working-class Hispanic”, so should I not have eye contact with any Hispanic or African-American students even though this could be potentially offensive behavior. Do folks have ways to solve these sticking points?”
3. “I wonder what to do in situations where I might disagree with or feel uncomfortable with the behavioral norms of other cultures on simple matters. For example, sometimes a woman comes in to get a library card and her husband does all the talking. I don’t know if I should speak only to the husband or, per my culture, talk to the woman. What is the right thing to do?”
4. ” I know that …avoiding racial identification except when it is essential to communication is an important strategy for removing stereotypical language. I have always tried to be aware of and not use stereotypical language in both my personal and professional life, but I know this can be most challenging for me because mentioning a person’s racial identification often decreases the time it takes for me to describe who I’m talking about. I want to be more patient and challenge myself to describe the person by coming up with all the other details about them (other than race). But I wonder, When (if ever) is it appropriate to use racial or other information to describe individuals?”
Side note: I also think our society does this with occupation. We often identify people by what they do to earn a living, rather than other personal characteristics that may be much more meaningful and descriptive.
Topics: Culturally Competent, Questions, Uncategorized |