Transcript Cultural Competency Equity, and Social Justice

Cultural Competency
Equity, and
Social Justice
Portland State University
July 2014
John Lenssen
Culture refers to integrated patterns of
human behavior that include the:
language, thoughts, communication,
actions, customs, beliefs, values, and
norms of racial, ethnic, religious, or
social groups.
Defining Culture
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Often used interchangeably with race and ethnicity
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Way of perceiving, believing, evaluating, and behaving. It
is the blueprint that determines the way we think, feel, and
behave.
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Groupings of people based on shared values beliefs and
behavioral norms
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Includes both subjective (e.g., values, norms, etc.) and
physical aspects (e.g., buildings, dress, foods, etc.;
Triandis)
Deeply Held, Harder-to Recognize
Components of Culture
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Perception of time (Hall)
Perception of space (Hall)
Individualism-collectivism
High context-low context (Hall)
Importance of hierarchy
Modes of self-expression
Modes of thinking
Importance and rigidity of gender roles
Nature of change
Humans’ relationship to the natural world
“Schools must embrace the worlds
from which their children come,
while at the same time teaching
them what they need to know to
succeed in the broader, dominant
culture.”
Lisa Delpit
Cultural Competency
What is cultural competence? Put
most simply, it is the ability to
successfully teach students who come
from cultures other than your own.”
Diller and Moule
Hierarchy of Cultural Competency
Unconsciously
Competent
Consciously
Competent
Consciously
Incompetent
Unconsciously
Incompetent
The Guiding Principles (Cultural
Proficiency)
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Culture is a predominant force; you cannot NOT be
influenced by culture.
People are served in varying degrees by the dominant
culture.
It is important to acknowledge the group identity of
individuals.
Diversity within cultures is important; cultural groups are
neither homogeneous nor monolithic.
Respect the unique needs that members of dominated
groups may have.
A Courageous Conversation
Engages those who won’t talk
 Sustains the conversation when it gets
uncomfortable or diverted
 Deepens the conversation to the point where
authentic understanding and meaningful
actions occur.
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Four Agreements of
Courageous Conversations
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Stay engaged.
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Speak your truth.
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Experience discomfort.
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Expect and accept non-closure.
Courageous Conversations
Believing
Feeling
Thinking
Morally
Intellectually
Emotionally
Socially
Doing
Changing the Discourse in
Schools
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“Discourse II conversations tend to be about
uncomfortable, unequal, ineffective,
prejudicial conditions and relationships in a
school.”
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“Any real effort to make substantive
(systemic) change must begin with a
Discourse II dialogue in schools, one that
blames no one and deconstructs what is
really going on.”
Discourse II Quotations
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In your small group discuss your quotation.
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Develop a one minute presentation for the
class - highlighting your take-away from the
quotation.
Courageous Conversations:
Changing the Discourse in
Schools
Discourse I Deals With:
Discourse II Deals With:
Singular truths
Multiple stories
Improving what exists
Changing something significant
Techniques, methods, and
content
Learning and school relationships
Discourse I
Discourse II
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Symptoms
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Causes
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Discipline and control
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Alienation and resistance
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The familiar
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The uncomfortable
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Answers and solutions
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Dilemmas and mysteries
Discourse I
Discourse II
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Ability and merit
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Privilege and
oppression
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Dropouts
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Pushouts
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The work of adults
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The learning and
experience of students
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Reproduction
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Transformation
Initiating Discourse II
On the topic of student discipline, and being
mindful of the disproportionate discipline
data in your school:
develop Discourse II questions intended to
deepen the dialogue and lead to systemic
change.
We Must Examine and Engage in
Dialogue Around:
Assumptions
 Beliefs
 Values
 Expectations
 Visions
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Listening To Each Other
When we begin listening to each other, and
when we talk about things that matter to us,
the world begins to change. Everyone has the
capacity to be able to figure out how to make
a difference. Listening and talking to one
another heals our divisions and makes us
brave again.
Margaret Wheatley,
Turning to One Another
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9 Healthy Ways to Communicate
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Reflect back what is being said. Use their
words, not yours.
Begin where they are at, not where you want
them to be.
Be curious and open to what they are trying to
say.
Notice what they are saying and what they are
not.
9 Healthy Ways to Communicate
5. Emotionally relate to how they are feeling. Nurture the
relationship.
6. Notice how you are feeling. Be honest and authentic.
7. Take responsibility for your part in the conflict or
misunderstanding.
8. Try to understand how their past affects who they are and
how those experiences affect their relationship with you.
9. Stay with the process and the relationship, not just the
solution.
Beliefs
What beliefs guide our work?
Beliefs
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Student Intelligence
Student Potential
Responsibility
Learning
Readiness To Learn
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Student Ability
Morality
Grading
Discipline
Leadership
Values
What are the values that we expect,
teach, and support in our schools?
What are the hidden values that are
communicated?
Values
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Time
Respect
Honesty
Competition
Achievement
Grading System
Effort
Compliance
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Responsibility
Safety
Cooperation
Knowledge
Family
Talent
Citizenship
Turf
Practices
What are our conscious and
unconscious practices?
Practices (with potential for
unintended negative impact)
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Homework
Suspensions
Grouping
Celebrations
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Grading
State assessments
Recognition
Student government
Expectations
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All students can learn.
vs.
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I am responsible for all students learning.
Expectations
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I have high expectations for all students, but
realistically I do not expect all students to
meet benchmarks.
Vs.
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I have high expectations for all students,
and I am disturbed when all students do not
meet benchmarks.
External Oppression
External oppression is the unjust exercise
of authority and power by one group
over another. It includes imposing one
group’s belief system, values and life
ways over another group.
Women’s Rural Advocacy Programs
Institutionalized Oppression
Institutionalized oppression is the
systematic mistreatment of people
within a social identity group,
supported and enforced by the
society and its institutions, solely
based on the person’s
membership in the social identity
group.
Internalized Oppression
External oppression becomes internalized
oppression when we come to believe and act
as if the oppressor's beliefs system, values,
and life way is reality.
“Self-hate" and "internalized racism" are
other ways of saying internalized oppression.
The result of internalized oppression is
shame and the disowning of our individual
and cultural reality.
Women’s Rural Advocacy Programs
Microaggressions
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Brief and commonplace daily verbal,
behavioral, and environmental indignities,
whether intentional or unintentional, that
communicate hostile, derogatory, or
negative racial slights and insults to the
target person or group.
Types of Microaggressions
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Microassault
Microinsult
Microinvalidation
“Have you ever been hurt and
the place tries to heal a bit, and
you just pull the scar off of it over
and over again.”
Rosa Parks
Response to Microaggressions
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Step One: Select one type of microaggression.
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Step Two: Script a specific statement that fits
within the type of microaggression. (statement
could be a microaggression that focuses on a
different form or oppression)
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Step Three: Brainstorm several responses to the
microaggression.
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Step Four: Select one response to present to the
group.
Privilege
» Million dollar privilege
» White privilege
» Male privilege
» Class privilege
» Heterosexual privilege
» Education status privilege
Unearned Advantage
This latent system of “unearned
privilege” is about having the
benefit of the doubt -- not because
of who you are and what you have
done, but because of how people
perceive you as a member of a
favored group.
White Privilege
Peggy McIntosh defines white
privilege as, “an invisible package
of unearned assets… like an
invisible weightless knapsack of
special provisions, maps,
passports, code books, visas,
clothes, tools, and blank checks.”
White Privilege Checklist
Peggy McIntosh
I can if I wish arrange to be in the
company of people of my race most of
the time.
I do not have to educate my children to
be aware of systemic racism for their
own daily physical protection.
White Privilege Checklist
I can take a job with an affirmative action
employer without having my co-workers
on the job suspect that I got it because
of my race.
I will feel welcomed and "normal" in the
usual walks of public life, institutional
and social.
Characteristics of White
Consciousness
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Universal perspective
– Doesn’t everyone experience life the way that I do?
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Individualism
– I earned this through hard work and effort.
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Avoidance
– This isn’t my problem.
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Decontexualization
– How does this particular situation have anything to do with
race?
Ego Identity Formation
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Most research on identity formation has
been provided by Erik Erikson.
– Identity is a subjective sense of wholeness that
is achieved during adolescence through an
identity crisis (turning point).
– Those who fail to achieve a secure identity are
faced with identity confusion, a lack of clarity
about who they are and what their role is in life.
Several Models of Ethnic
Development have been proposed
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Many researchers agree that an achieved
identity is the result of a crisis or
awakening, which leads to a period of
exploration or experimentation and finally
to a commitment or incorporation of one’s
ethnicity.
What is ethnic identity development?
A sense of group or collective identity
based on one’s perception that he or she
shares a common racial/ethnic heritage with
a particular racial/ethnic group
 Racial identity development theory
concerns the psychological implications of
racial-group membership, that is belief
systems that evolve in reaction to perceived
differential racial-group membership.
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Unexamined Ethnic Identity
Characterized by the lack of exploration of
ethnicity.
 Existing models suggest that minority
subjects initially accept the values and
attitudes of the majority culture.
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– Including internalized negative views of their
own group held by the majority.
Conformity
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In this stage, people of color identify strongly with White
Dominant Society, permitting the White society to define
their worth and value.
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Individuals in this stage often accept negative stereotypes
about themselves and their group. In addition, they know
very little and are not interested in learning about their own
ethnic heritage or history.
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Such persons usually associate with primarily White
people and have very little to do with members of their
own ethnic group.
Dissonance
In this stage, persons have experiences, or
gain insights, that cause them to question
their conforming attitudes, and cause
confusion and conflict.
 They question values of the dominant
culture they have previously held in high
esteem.
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Dissonance
They become more aware of racism,
oppression, and stereotyping.
 Ethnic minority individuals may attempt to
develop friendly relations with members of
their own ethnic group with whom they
have previously not been able to identify.
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Resistance and Immersion
This is a stage of extremes, during which
individuals become immersed in their own
cultural history, values, and life-style.
 Such persons are highly motivated to
combat oppression, racism, and prejudice,
and may evidence activist behavior and an
increased distrust of the dominant culture.
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Resistance and Immersion
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Overall, individuals in this stage attempt to
separate themselves from the dominant
group, believing that majority people are
responsible for their negative life
circumstances.
Introspection
In this stage, individuals take a hard look at
their total rejection of the dominant culture
and total acceptance of their own group.
 Individuals often experience conflict and
confusion regarding loyalty to their cultural
groups and their personal preferences and
autonomy.
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Introspection
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Internal conflict is most profound in this
stage, as individuals struggle to find a
balance between what they want for
themselves, based on personal desires,
needs, and aspirations versus what their
own ethnic group expects of them.
Synergetic Articulation and
Awareness
Persons in this stage have acquired
knowledge and an appreciation of their own
cultural group, which enable them to value
and respect the culture and values of other
people.
 Persons in this stage have resolved many of
the previously experienced conflicts,
resulting in fulfillment of their cultural
identity.
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Ethnic Minority Acculturation
Modes
Berry (1989) developed modes to cultural acculturation
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Assimilation, valuing the majority culture over one’s
own culture
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Separation, preserving one’s culture while withdrawing
from the majority culture
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Marginalization, losing cultural contact and
identification with one’s culture as well as the majority
culture
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Integration, valuing and integrating one’s culture as well
as the majority culture
White Racial Identity Development
Contact
In the contact stage, White individuals are
unaware of themselves as racial beings
because being White is so much the norm
that it is taken for granted.
 Those in this stage who choose to interact
across racial and cultural lines become
aware of societal pressure against doing
so.
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Disintegration
In the disintegration stage, Whites are
forced to acknowledge that they are White.
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minorities in three different ways: overidentification with ethnic minorities,
paternalistic attitudes toward ethnic
minorities, or retreat back into White
culture.
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Reintegration
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Individuals in this stage may become very
hostile toward ethnic minorities and become
more positively biased toward their own
group.
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They are either covertly or overtly antiethnic. Many in this stage are also angry
and afraid.
Pseudo-Independence
This stage is characterized by an intellectual
acceptance of ethnic minority persons.
 A pronounced feature of this stage is that,
while cross-cultural communication occurs,
it involves those minorities who are most
similar to Whites.
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Pseudo-Independence
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For example, ethnic minorities with
comparable values, educational and
economic levels, and with sometimes
similar physical features to White people,
might be invited to socialize with White
people.
Immersion/Emersion
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Begins search for ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
Wants to develop a positive self-concept as “White” in
light of the reality of white privilege.
Begins to form relationships with people of color.
Questions the benefit of speaking up about racism among
“white” people.
Autonomy
In the autonomy stage, White individuals
have greater acceptance of racial differences
and similarities.
 Differences are not perceived as deficits and
similarities are not seen as enhancers.
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Autonomy
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Autonomous people actively seek
opportunities to involve themselves in
cross-cultural interaction because they value
cultural diversity and are secure in their
own ethnic identity.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Paulo Freire
Problem posing
 Students and teachers perceive critically the
ways they exist in the world.
 Co-construction of the curriculum.
 Education as the practice of freedom
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Anti-Oppression Strategies
Own our positionality!! Speak from our
own experience/perspective. Speak our
truths knowing that they are not necessarily
universal or the norm.
 Encourage critical thinking!!
 Get to know our students’ cultural
backgrounds and the dynamics of
oppression in their lives.
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Anti-Oppression Strategies
Build bridges between students’ cultural
experiences and the culture of the classroom
and content.
 Surface conflicting values and beliefs.
Facilitate dialogue through the conflicts.
 Acknowledge that dominant culture beliefs
about intelligence and ability tend to reenforce the cycles of oppression.
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"Education either functions as an instrument
which is used to facilitate integration of the
younger generation into the logic of the present
system and bring about conformity or it
becomes the practice of freedom, the means by
which men and women deal critically and
creatively with reality and discover how to
participate in the transformation of their
world."
Paul Freire