The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s prompted educators and health and human services professionals to develop cultural competence. The belief was, if the mostly white practitioners increased their knowledge of diverse racial and ethnic groups’ values and customs, they could improve the delivery of services to diverse populations. While cultural competence was a step in the right direction, it inadvertently reinforced and created stereotypes about cultural practices and experiences that fell short of achieving its goal of supporting culturally sensitive service delivery.
In this two-part training session, participants will learn the importance of cultural humility: suspending cultural assumptions and, instead, embracing individuals’ personal definitions and expressions of culture. Participants will explore cultural humility by defining their own personal culture using a myriad of identity factors (e.g., skin color, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and ability) and determining whether those identity factors place them in privileged or marginalized groups, or both. They will learn how the intersections of various identity factors create a unique cultural experience for every individual and how these intersections result in systemic power differentials and complex experiences of oppression. Finally, they will apply their cultural identity to the framework of the Cage of Oppression and, using the example of lookism, evaluate how existing power structures impact their lives and the lives of those they serve. By recognizing the societal effects of intersectionality, participants will be challenged to incorporate cultural humility in their personal and professional interactions.