Cultural Humility and Cultural Competency: Their Space in Teaching & Learning
“Please correct me if I am wrong.” You might have heard this sentence many times from people around you, your colleagues, family, or someone who you may have just met. There is an embedded admission in this sentence by the speaker that “I may not have the full story on the matter being discussed, but here is what I know.” At the same time, it’s a humble acknowledgement, most presumably, that “I’d like to know what you have to say.” This may be the simplest example of humility we encounter in our daily lives.
‘Humility’ is commonly understood as a personality trait where a ‘humble’ person is ready to admit gaps in their knowledge and seeks to learn from others’ experiences. As for learning from each other, being an educational institution, a university context is the best suited example since it is considered to be the hub of knowledge creation, information sharing and dissemination; at the same time, it ideally, creates a space for all community members, including, staff, faculty and students to learn from each other i.e., the co-creation of knowledge.
This article is the first of the two-parts that draw attention to cultural humility, cultural competency, and intersectionality as effective tools to co-create knowledge and provide all community members with agency in the teaching and learning process.
Here’s how a quick Google search defines ‘Humility’: it’s the ‘state of freedom from being proud or arrogant’. We get it, right? Humility is being humble, which is a good attribute to have. However, that’s not what I want to talk about here. What I want to discuss is humility as an ‘action’ as opposed to being a ‘state’ (which could be synonymous with ‘inaction’). In this article, I am hoping, collectively, the readers and I come to an understanding about cultural humility that can help us develop cultural competency that in turn can inform our efforts to implement inclusive teaching and learning practices, the action we would desire to see happen.
Among other lessons, what the recent pandemic has taught us is that we live in a globally connected world that is geographically, emotionally, historically, and culturally linked in more ways than we think. One of the ways academic institutions at the macro-level, and classrooms at the micro-level, could potentially capitalize on this realization is to reflect on how acquisition of knowledge is connected across the globe, and how institutions, instructors, and students can implement cultural humility in their practice. This global connectedness offers space to find the relational tradition of acquiring knowledge. Martin and Pirbhai Illich (2016) contrast teacher education and teachers’ experiences in two different contexts (Tamil Nadu in India, and the UK). They refer to teachers’ experiences as intercultural and examine them through Burbules’ (1997) relational logic and propose relational tradition of acquiring and sharing knowledge. According to Martin and Pirbhai (2016), the relational tradition of acquiring knowledge occurs when we not only expect, but we are also ready to accept differences, and “through dialogue seek to understand those differences in relation to the socio-cultural, environmental, economic, and political contexts that formed them” (Martin & PirBhai-Illich, 2016, p. 361).
In this article, I’ll rationalize how understanding cultural humility can provide a direction towards creating a more culturally responsive environment of acquiring knowledge through relational way of knowing, which consequently would help:
create a relational and reflective way of knowing (cultural competency)
create inclusive teaching environment (cultural humility)
Cultural Competency
Cultural competency has been defined in many different ways over the past decades. One commonly used definition is that cultural competency is an end itself, and there are quantifiable skills and attitudes that can be taught, learned, and practised when interacting with someone from a different cultural background (Prasad et al, 2016). This objective-based definition of cultural competency assumes that when one comes in contact with difference, and if they possessed certain set of skills, they would be interculturally competent. However, within this assumption, the perception is that one needs to know ‘the other’ before they know ‘themselves’. However, cultural competence comprises the following:
Being aware of one’s own world view and cultural identity
Developing positively curious attitude towards difference
Gaining knowledge and acceptance about different cultural orientations and world views
Developing skills to interact and communicate across cultural boundaries
Cultural competency is also about having a strong will and putting actions in place for providing equal opportunities for learning to all students. More than respecting, acknowledging, and being aware of difference, we are expected to be proactive and responsive and demonstrate this through tangible actions that are taken towards creating an environment of equity, fairness, and social justice.
Here are some basic ideas and possibilities that can prove helpful in starting the process of fulfilling our commitment to EDIA (Third Century Promise, Dalhousie University’s Strategic Plan 2021-2026).
Ideas & Possibilities
Develop a definition of cultural competency of your own. This will help your students understand the relationship between developing cultural competency and successful learning experience. This will also help you make a deliberate effort to integrate cultural competency in your teaching. Here is a video (Cultural Competence: What Does It Mean For Educators?) I have found useful in developing my own definition of cultural competency for my work.
Help your students develop a definition of their own. This will help them reflect on the components of cultural competence and that will consequently help develop cultural humility as they start working with peers from diverse backgrounds.
Cultural Humility
Cultural humility goes above and beyond the concept of cultural competence. In the late 90’s, healthcare professionals, Melanie Tervalon and Jann Murray-García introduced the idea of cultural humility to healthcare workers in the United States to address racial and social discrimination and inequities. They described cultural humility as “a tool to educate physicians to work with culturally, ethnically, and racially diverse populations in the United States.” Cultural humility is now used in education in addition to a host of other social and academic contexts. Dr. Trevalon and Dr. Murray-García have identified the following as the main tenants of cultural humility:
A personal lifelong commitment to self-evaluation and self-critique
Recognition of power dynamics and imbalances, a desire to fix those power imbalances and to develop partnerships with people and groups who advocate for others
Institutional accountability
Ideas & Possibilities
Reflect on the elements of your personal and professional engagements and encounters and see what needs to be re-evaluated and critiqued to develop and practice cultural humility. Some of these elements where re-evaluations and reviews could be made are:
Team and committee interactions
Course outlines
Assessments
Trends and trajectories in success and achievement according to your class results
Re-examine if your teaching and assessment methodologies may disadvantage some and inadvertently advantage others. Before planning meeting agenda, assessments, etc., include students and colleagues where necessary for their views, learning preferences, and previous learning experiences.
For the ideas and possibilities suggested above, CLT has support to offer through educational developers and resources.
A Word
Developing cultural competency and practicing cultural humility are part of a consistent and deliberate process and continuous journey towards achieving equity and eliminate discriminatory practices based in lack of understanding and absence of a strong will to self-evaluate and critique. This process is also responsive and adapts and changes with changing situations and contextual evolution.
I wish you well on this journey once you plan and decide to take it.
References
Burbules, N. C. (1997). A grammar of difference: Some ways of rethinking difference and diversity as educational topics. Australian Educational Researcher, 24(1), 97-116.
Chavez, V. (2012, August 2). Cultural Humility: People, Principles and Practices - Part 1 of 4. [Video]. You Tube.
Lekas, H. M., Pahl, K., & Fuller Lewis, C. (2020). Rethinking cultural competence: Shifting to cultural humility. Health Services Insights, 13, 1178632920970580. https://doi.org/10.1177/1178632920970580
Martin, F., & Pirbhai-Illich, F. (2016). Towards decolonising teacher education: Criticality, relationality and intercultural understanding. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 37(4), 355-372. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2016.1190697
Prasad, S. J., Nair, P., Gadhvi, K., Barai, I., Danish, H. S., & Philip, A. B. (2016). Cultural humility: Treating the patient, not the illness. Medical Education Online, 21(1), 30908.
Project READY: Reimagining Equity & Access for Diverse Youth. https://ready.web.unc.edu/section-1-foundations/module-8
TED (2009, October 6). Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The danger of a single story . [Video] YouTube.
Tervalon, M. and Murray-García, J. Cultural humility: People, principles and practices. [Video] YouTube.
Dr. Shazia nawaz Awan
Educational Developer, Internationalization & Intercultural Competency