Please watch the following video demonstration and respond to the discussion question below.
What is the difference in Cultural Competence and Cultural Humility, as shown in the video?
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Cultural competence is the assumption of being “all knowing or all powerful”, it is the assumption that because an individual has learned about others’ cultures that they have achieved/accomplished a full understanding and their is no need for further learning.
Cultural humility is a commitment to daily and lifelong learning and a commitment to critical self reflection. Cultural humility includes recognizing, confronting, and mitigating power imbalances and holding institutions accountable to model these commitments. Cultural humility is respecting an individual’s (or community’s) ability to express their wants and needs, and their stories, experiences, values, beliefs, etc. and an opportunity to give thought to and reflect on your own biases, values, and beliefs, etc. in a critical manner.
I found that the distinction Pamela Simms-Mackay provided was helpful: cultural competence is a topic, while cultural humility is a philosophy or approach. Cultural humility is rooted in openness, compassion and self-reflection. As a few people in the video made clear, it is not something we can master or attain, but rather, is something that we should continually be trying to lean into. It is both personal and collective. As individuals, we each have a unique story, and this affects our perception of ourselves and the world. A big part of cultural humility is paying attention to our stories and the stories of others. It is paying attention to power imbalances and allowing this to inform how we act and interact. It rests on deep listening and hearing, and then responding with compassion from that place.
While cultural humility is an embodied practice, cultural competency is attained through theoretical knowledge. I believe that cultural competency can lead to cultural humility, and cultural humility can lead to efforts to increase in cultural competency. However, as some expressed in the video, cultural competence has certain pitfalls, in that the ultimate goal can be knowledge acquisition, which does not necessarily translate into more kind, understanding and equitable practices.
Cultural humility is a tool/philosophy/approach that contributes toward a greater goal of equality, love and respect through acceptance. Cultural humility is a lifelong journey of learning and critical self reflection as opposed to cultural competence which is framed as a topic that either you know or don't know.
Cultural competence is seen as the ability and willingness to understand, communicate and interact with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures. It brings to mind the understanding of one’s own beliefs while being respectful and sensitive to those others around us.
As for Cultural Humility, it is a state of constant and lifelong learning in regard to respecting and recognizing the differences and complexities in others lives. It’s being aware that we will not ever fully understand someone else’s culture and/or background but prove the willingness to learn and grow in our understanding and interactions.
By combining these approaches, we will be able to participate in meaningful interactions, enhance mutual understanding and collaboration.
The main differences between cultural humility and cultural competency are intention and compassion.
Cultural competency refers to a general acceptance of other cultures. It is a way we can gain skills to better serve the communities and their unique experiences. It helps us acknowledge the gaps and injustices people may face.
Cultural humility takes into account self-reflection. Being open to honest self-reflection, openness to others, and understanding that we always have more to learn. Being compassionate to the experiences of others. Cultural humility is a journey, a continuous process.
As a people of color living in North America for nearly a decade, I am a strong proponent of cultural humility and cultural competence. In my opinion, cultural humility is the seed to develop cultural competence in an individual and that change would gradually take effect in the form of macroscopic changes in the society. If a person is humble towards other's culture, it becomes that much easier to live a lifelong learning experience, exploring new cultures and people. Cultural humility also bring people together from all over the world and essentially drives the society towards equality. It is contrary to the concept of power and wealth.
Cultural competence is the result of cultural humility. A person will only become culturally competent through learning about other cultures. And the open mind to explore others culture is a direct result of cultural humility. Therefore, I believe that cultural humility is the cause and cultural competence is the effect in this scenario.
According to the video, cultural competence revolves around a need to learn about others to understand them better. However, it does not take into consideration of adding compassion into the equation, which is the essence to cultural humility. Cultural humility has been described a a philosophy, or a tool used to reach our goal of equity, respect and equality. It is not just about lifelong learning, but involves critical self reflection, and recognizing and challenging power imbalances.
Cultural competence allows us to reflect on our own cultural views and biases, while learning about the beliefs and behaviours of other cultural groups. Cultural competence provides a generalized understanding of different cultures. Cultural humility is the ability to be open and receptive to a journey of continuous learning. Seeing these moments as opportunities for reflection on our own cultural biases and beliefs.
Cultural humility describes a dynamic process of sustained learning around a cultural social context whereas cultural competence describes a set framework of ‘expected’ knowledge around specific cultures. Cultural competence appears to be limited in that it assumes that there is a set amount of knowledge to be aware of regarding culture whereas in reality, a person must be open to learn and must accept that they do not and cannot know everything there is to know about culture.
Cultural humility as presented in the video is a mindset, approach, and philosophy that encourages one to be open to continuous learning and unlearning about other cultures and groups. A description that really resonated for me was that of cultural humility as a 'spiral road'. No matter how far you travel, you are always returning back to a place of humility and starting again.
'Competence' implies that one can learn a certain set of skills and be complete in their understanding of different cultures. It also implies that other cultures are static, unchanging, and can be understood completely. Cultural humility on the other hand, recognizes that culture and people are ever-changing and we must strive to appreciate the diversity and complexity of them continuously.
Cultural humility is essential in order to reduce the power imbalances that exist in society, as well as destabilize the structures that have historically benefitted some groups at the expense of others. Cultural humility demands critical self-reflection in order for us to understand our own role in these structures and how these may affect our interpersonal interactions.
Cultural competence – learning about different cultures and people. General education about a culture. Learning skills to communicate with others. Learning to acknowledge that you may be biased and working on how to address those biases when working with others.
Often individuals think they are culturally competent after having taken the time to acknowledge differences and learn about a culture, but this may lead to assumptions.
Cultural humility – ongoing process. Being humble about what you do not know. Acknowledging that everyone’s knowledge is limited and being curious and open about knowing who someone is rather than learning about their cultural and assuming it applies to them. Life-long process of critical self-reflection where we recognize our power and listen to others. Ideally using our power and experiences to then tackles issues at higher levels within our environment and institutions who might also assume they’ve covered cultural competency by making a few statements or providing general knowledge that most likely will not apply to every situation.
Cultural humility is a journey in learning. It’s having an openness to learn about other cultures and realizing the communities we serve are the experts. To be culturally humble means admitting that we are lacking in awareness and are willing to learn.
Cultural humility is a continuous process.
Cultural humility leads to Cultural competence. Through the process of learning you can eventually develop a level of cultural competence which will result in a positive impact on the communities you serve.
To me, Cultural Humility is the act of setting aside conscious bias and understanding that there are many points of view outside of our own, while also understanding that unconscious bias remains. It is listening to stories, learning all sides of history, asking difficult questions and recognizing one’s own power and privilege. It’s the willingness to accept that we only see our own reality and must work diligently to see the realities of others in order to propel forwards in our understanding, practices and policies. Cultural humility deals with breaking the barriers of our own belief systems and cultural upbringings to gain a broader understanding and empathy for others. Overall, cultural humility is an ongoing reflection into ourselves while taking in critical information about our world through hearing about the experiences of other peoples.
Cultural competency on the other hand is the collection of knowledge which helps to broaden our understanding of the world around us. Where cultural humility focuses on the individual, I feel that cultural competency deals with the broader population, the broader picture. Cultural competency is a learned skillset that relies on open mindedness and listening. It relies on the communication of both experiences, events and movements that propel is forwards. It is also an understanding that the type of learning we get from building our cultural competency is ongoing.
Both cultural competency and cultural humility involve a lifetime of learning, acceptance, and open mindedness.
As described in the video, cultural humility is a perspective with some of the goal including of equity, equality and respect. It is more open and consistently evolving way of working with individuals to ensure learning is ongoing, there is recognition and challenges made to system of oppression and power imbalances as well institutional accountability. Cultural humility was described as not just checking a box and believing you have the knowledge but rather having a perspective that you don't know everything and therefore to be able to act/respond appropriately you have to work and partner with communities and individuals. This approach when applied in healthcare is more respectful of the power imbalances that may exist between providers and patients/families, so by using this approach of inquiry as opposed to expertise to work with people it can help move towards those goals.
Cultural competency is described more as having knowledge or ability in a certain topic as opposed to a perspective to approach things from. They raised the point that if people believe they have this knowledge or understanding of generalized knowledge of groups of people they may be less likely to explore the individual situation and understand the individual person. It seems to be more focused on having a certain amount of knowledge as opposed to always being open to learning more like cultural humility is.
As shown in the video, cultural humility is a journey. It is a philosophy or approach to help us understand or make peace with not knowing and to encourage us to be open to continuous learning. To be culturally humble is to understand and acceptance that the communities being served understand what they want and need and to listen to what they are saying. Cultural humility should be thought of as a never-ending spiral road or continuous loop.
Cultural competence is a set of skills that allow one to communicate or interact effectively with people of other cultures. As described in the video, it implies a subject or topic and results in an achievement or gives the illusion of being “all knowing” or “all powerful”.
After watching the video, I see Cultural Humility as being more of a way of thinking; specifically one that is more introspective, and consists of self-reflection, recognizing bias and privlege, as well as recognizing you don’t know everything, and you can’t be an expert on another person’s experience. Another key part of cultural humility is having an openness to learn, and understanding that you’re never “done”, nor is it something you can “master”.
Cultural competence seems to be more externally focused, and is reflective of tacit knowledge and skills that one can obtain. Using the term “competence” seems to imply that you can reach a certain level of knowing, and also seems to inherently create further hierarchy (e.g. incompetent versus competent). I can imagine there are many examples where someone may have a lot of knowledge and skills and be “culturally competent, but may not have the self-reflection skills to be culturally humble.
I think another important distinction is the level at which we look at something. I think cultural competence is more likely to lead to “categorizing” different populations and communities based on their experiences. Whereas cultural humility involves understanding the individual experience in front of you.
From my perspective, cultural humility is an admission and a recognition that my knowledge is lacking when it comes to serving other cultures, and how I learn and approach those diverse cultures whereas cultural competence is about learning how to provide care to a diverse population and their respective beliefs and behaviors.
Cultural Competency I feel is a broad acceptance and involvement in other cultures other than what is your own. It is the action of knowledge to be applied to any situation which deals with another cultural involvement. it is made of 3 defined applications. It involves you being up to a knowledge level of other cultures you are dealing with on a professional level.
Cultural Humility is the action of bringing yourself to the thought process and beliefs of another culture with which you interact. You may not agree but allow an openness of mind to embrace the unknown.
Cultural humility is an approach or philosophy that has 3 key principles: lifelong learning and self reflection; recognition of power imbalances such as in patient and care provider relationships; institutional accountability.
Cultural competence is the end of process in which an individual has both desire to learn and ability to hear about history and heritage.
Cultural humility is an approach whereby we acknowledge and accept that we are not “all knowing” about every culture, background, power dynamic and others personal experiences. Cultural humility requires an awareness, understanding and openness to self-reflect and learn from others by listening to their lived experiences and perspectives and ask questions. There is no end in this openness to learn about and from others.
Cultural competence however, refers to gaining skills and knowledge, and once you have acquired these skills and knowledge, you are “all knowing” and there is no further learning to be done in this particular area.
The difference between cultural humility and cultural competence is intention.
When working on cultural humility its important to self reflect. This process allows us to acknowledge important things such as power differentials, privilege, perspectives, and bias. Furthermore, it allows us to reflect on these areas and try to identify how this makes our own experience different than that of others of different cultural backgrounds. When we reflect on how this may be different for others it allow us to think critically about how to improves no only our own mindsets, but be an agent for change (especially working in healthcare) to help change things from a systems perspective to make access to healthcare more culturally safe.
Cultural competence is something we can work on continually to help address those gaps and imbalances we identify when practicing cultural humility. It allows us to improve our skills and knowledge to bring forward to the communities we serve to ensure we are offering a safe and inclusive health care experience. Additionally it allows us to build our skills to share with others, and encourage others on their learning journey to hopefully make cultural competency and safety come to the forefront of healthcare.
For me, cultural safety is an awareness of oneself. It's about being open to critical reflection and life-long learning. It involves an examination of our own beliefs and assumptions about others and their cultures. I see it as continually evolving as we continue to experience one another. Cultural competence for me seems to be more definitive, in the sense that you can acquire this knowledge / skill and then it's complete.
Cultural humility is a process of self-reflection and learning about one's own biases; perspectives. As a way to address power and how that might be different between different groups. For me, I reflect how this might impact especially on my career in healthcare. If we don't get this right, it has an impact on safety, community and society.
For me cultural competence is about gaining skills.