Culturally appropriate

Good services are culturally appropriate

Culture

All of us are cultural beings. All of us have culture. Our culture shapes how we see the world and make sense of it. Culture influences all of our behaviours and interactions.

Culture is acquired - we learn about culture from others in our community, including our parents.

Culture is shared - culture does not exist in a vacuum, it is shared amongst a group of people.

Culture defines core values - because we have been taught our culture and share it with our cultural group, we tend to form the same core values.

Cultures resist change but are not static - culture does and can change, but change is usually slow and gradual.

Good services will be culturally appropriate.

For services to be culturally appropriate the service providers and the workers must be culturally competent.

Cultural competence is not just knowing about other cultures, being culturally aware or being sensitive to other cultures. 

Cultural competence is the knowledge, behaviours, attitudes, policies and systems that enable service providers and workers to work effectively in cross-cultural situations and respond to the needs of a culturally diverse population.

Cultural competence is required by organisations and individuals.

Culturally competent  service provider:

Culturally competent  service providers:

• Value diversity by accepting that the people they serve are from different cultural backgrounds and will make different choices based on culture
• Acknowledge and accept that cultural differences exist and have an impact on service delivery
• Believe that diversity within cultures is as important as diversity between cultures
• Respect the unique, culturally defined needs of various client populations
• Recognize that concepts such as "family" and "community" are different for various cultures and even for subgroups within cultures
• Incorporate cultural knowledge into all levels of service planning, delivery and evaluation
• Understand that people from different racial and ethnic groups and other cultural subgroups are usually best served by persons who are a part of or in tune with their culture

Culturally competent workers

Culturally competent workers:

• Understanding the concept of culture and how culture influences behaviours and the meaning of behaviours
• Show an openness and willingness to become aware of and explore their own cultural values, beliefs and attitudes
• Show an openness and willingness to explore the same things from the perspective of people from other cultural backgrounds  
• Show they can identify useful and culturally appropriate strategies for working with people from diverse cultural backgrounds

Knowledge of particular cultures

To be culturally competent in working with a particular client does require some knowledge of their culture and beliefs.
Service providers and workers can ask clients and the family members about their culture and beliefs.
There are also community profiles available that service providers and workers can use to help gain the specific knowledge they need to best work with particular clients.

For example: good attendanct care in practice

The worker

• Asking about the client and their family’s culture and beliefs.
• Cooking culturally appropriate meals when helping with meal preparation.
• Being aware of and taking into account the cultural significance of
  • gender roles
  • religious belief

The person receiving attendant care and/or their family

• Describing for the worker and the service provider your culture and beliefs.
• Understanding the role of the worker and the limits to their work.

 

Generalising versus Stereotyping

In order to understand culture and compare cultures, we need to generalise but not stereotype.

Generalising

Generalising is grouping elements to form categories to make sense of a complex world.

We cannot respond to all of the isolated and disparate things we encounter or observe in our interactions with different groups and types of people so we group information into categories.

When observing different cultures we can make general observations based on our knowledge and experience. For example, we can generalise that:

• '‘Western’ societies tend to be individualistic
• Germans tend to value efficiency and formality
• U.S. Americans readily praise personal achievement
• Japanese society values discretion and politeness.

Stereotyping

But when we take these categorisations of general observation and apply them to whole groups of people, ignoring individual differences, we stereotype everyone in those groups. The stereotypical views of the above generalisations could be:

• Australians are selfish
• Germans are uptight
• Americans are show-offs
• Japanese never say what they really think.

Generalisations & Stereotypes

The key differences between generalising and stereotyping are:

Generalisations	Stereotypes
Retained consciously Descriptive, not judgmental Modified by subsequent experience	Retained unconsciously Judgmental, not descriptive Not modified by experience

 

Generalising can be a useful starting point for understanding - and then being open to modify our perceptions as new information about groups comes to us.

Stereotyping is not a useful starting point for understanding others or working with them.

Adapted from Culture from the Inside Out, Alan Cornes (1998)