Question
What is cultural awareness?
Answer
Cultural awareness is appreciating that each culture is dependent upon one another and is equal in importance. No one culture is more important than the other. No one culture is better. No one culture is right and no one culture is wrong. Our culture is exactly that, it's ours, and it's ours to choose and it's ours to hold and to be proud of.
Cultural awareness is practicing mutual respect for others whose culture and experiences are different than ours. Sometimes that's hard. I've worked with families that had vastly different viewpoints on disciplining their children than mine, vastly different than what I thought was appropriate. Within certain bounds, I have to respect that and expect that they're also going to respect that I have different opinions as well.
Cultural awareness is developing connections with one another across cultures. Really connecting with people despite the fact that your cultures are so very different, despite the fact that you have different views, different values, and different beliefs.
It's also identifying and removing any barriers that we might have to including and understanding all cultures. You have to understand and recognize your own biases so that you can make sure that you're not being prejudiced or intentionally leaving out a certain group, but also so that we don't pass those biases along to our children.
This Ask the Expert is an edited excerpt from the course, Diversity and Cultural Awareness, by Natasha Crosby Kile, MS.
