Presentation Objectives
1) Recognize the importance of culture in practice;
2) Define and understand components of cultural competence;
3) Identify the process of cultural self-awareness; and
4) Apply aspects of cultural competence to their own practice.
Culture – What do We Think it is?
When we think about culture, what do we think it is? The answer is often things like food, music, values, or many of the things that we know. This is the definition that Shirley and I had written in our last book (Black & Wells, 2007), “Culture is the sum total of a way of living, and it incorporates our beliefs, our values, our linguistic expression, the way we think. It also includes demographic variables like age, gender, place of residence; status variables such as social, educational and economic levels, and affiliation variables.” And by that, I mean that we are all parts of different sub-cultural groups. For instance, I believe all of us are probably occupational therapists, and live and work within the culture of OT.
