Cultural Competence: Exploring Models and Importance

Introduction

Cultural competence is defined as the capacity for effective interaction with persons from diverse cultures and socio-economic setups, more so at the workplace. The concept of cultural competence focuses on and individual’s cultural worldview and awareness, recognition of diverse cultural practices and views, his/her attitude to these differences and the ability to accommodate and interact effectively with people from diverse cultures; that is, the individual’s cross cultural skills (Vaugh & Martin, 2007). Cross cultural competence is very important for health care providers as it determines the effectiveness with which services are provided. Extensive study on this topic has led to the development of various models, aimed at describing aspects of individuals’ approaches to culture. This paper will look at two models of cultural competence; the Purnell model for cultural competence and the Terry Cross’ intercultural competence model.

The Purnell Model for Cultural Competence

Purnell (2005)described culture as a process where a person moves

The stages of cultural incompetence include cultural destructiveness which is characterized by culture-destructive policies, attitudes and practices. These policies, attitudes and policies also end up destroying the individuals within the cultures; Cultural incapacity where individuals see culture as a problem that has to be eliminated or else have ‘lesser’ cultures eliminated in favor of the ‘mainstream’ or superior cultures. In that case, individuals exhibit cultural incapacity. That is, they lack cultural competence, maintain cultural stereotypes, assume racial superiority and have little expectations and confidence in people from other cultures; and cultural blindness where individuals prefer to view and treat people as per their own