Cultural Competency and Teaching

By Sinead Cooper, PGY-1 Pharmacy Practice Resident, Western Maryland Regional Medical Center

To be a competent and successful teacher, it is vital to be aware of different cultures to appropriately teach all of your students.  One seemingly innocuous comment can offend a student and can alter their whole perception of you as well as the class.  Being culturally competent is an essential tool in the teacher’s arsenal to have an effective and thought-provoking class.  When teaching a technical class, such as a pharmacy or science course, it may appear to be cut and dry and unsusceptible to unintentional offense, but this is not the case.    

          While different cultures stems from more than just different ethnicities, it is what one generally thinks of when different cultures are discussed.  Thirty percent of the US population is racial minorities, and by 2050, minorities are expected to become the majority¹.  Different cultural backgrounds can have different characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, country of origin among other demographics.  Every individual has different cultural boundaries, and while it is not realistic to cater to every aspect of every individual, it is important to not isolate students.  A big issue is unintentional cultural blindness, where people are unaware that what they are doing is offending others.  To become culturally competent, you, as the teacher must develop interpersonal awareness as well as leaning specific bodies of cultural knowledge.  Gaining cultural intelligence is important to teaching everyone.  In teaching different cultures, you must have knowledge of different cultures, an awareness of how culture shapes individuals, an understanding of social context of different, and an ability to delineate information in a way your pupils can understand².  Additionally being flexible and adapting to new situations or responses from your students is key.  An interesting article by Tanner and Allen discussed how to gain cultural competence in the college biology classroom.  I found this to be very applicable to teaching in science courses in general as well as pharmacy courses³.  

          Studies have shown that some students of different cultural backgrounds are a driving force for course selection³.  Students may be unwilling to abandon their own cultural identities and assimilate to a different cultural identity; they may not identify with their peers in the science community and may feel like an outsider.  An issue that has been identified is teaching concepts without context to the real world.  Some people, particularly females of color found this narrow focus had a negative impact on their learning³.  An easy remedy is relating it to real world scenarios, to keep the audience engaged and motivated. 

          To become a culturally competent teacher one must not only be aware of cultures other than their own but a self-reflection on the role their culture played on their education.  Four main ways were identified in the above mentioned study to teach with cultural competence.  The first is monitoring and changing ordinary language in the classroom to avoid any assumptions and unintended exclusions.  Another way is to become aware of patterns of interaction with students. This includes who we call on typically, who we praise or scold; even who we say when referring to a group project.  You, as a teacher can work on this by seeing who you normally talk to, looking at demographics of students, and if a small classroom setting, trying to understand each students backgrounds.  A third tactic is to integrate cultural relevance and diverse role models into your curriculum.  Some of your students may not have any role models in science that they can feel they can really relate to, for whatever reason.  As a women growing up, I didn’t know of any female leaders in science, it was only until I got older and did more research I was able to find female role models.  Highlighting the backgrounds of some of the people mentioned in courses, I think, could play an important role in creating more role models.  Finally the last tactic is confronting and revising differing expectations and stereotypes of the students, and is perhaps the most difficult.  Confrontation is never easy, and when dealing with stereotypes it get particularly dicey.  Subconsciously some teachers may treat students differently or have different expectations for their students.  The teacher’s expectations for students, regardless of their accuracy can have an impactful effect on students; this phenomenon is known as the Pygmalion effect³.  When a teacher has high expectations, the student will do better academically, regardless of their abilities³.  Removing these unintentional stereotypes is the end goal to become a culturally competent teacher and require hard work and dedication.   

          Becoming a culturally competent teacher is an important aspect in being a well-rounded and impactful teacher.  Despite many people’s perceptions that science classes are removed from bias, studies have shown that is not the case.  Through work and dedication of others cultures and being open can help new teachers become culturally competent.     

References:

1.    Kripalani S, Bussey-Jones J, Katz MF, and Genao I.  A Prescription for Cultural Competence in Medical Education.  J Gen Intern Med 2006;21:1116-1120.  Accessed Apr 2017

2.    Seeleman C, Suurmond J, and Stronks K.  Cultural competence: a conceptual framework for teaching and learning.  Medical Education 2009;43: 229-237.  Accessed Apr 2017

3.    Tanner K and Allen D.  Cultural Competence in the College Biology Class Room.  Amer Soc Cell Bio.  2007;6:251-258.  Accessed Apr 2017