Being Culturally Sensitive
The cultural group to which you belong has played an important part in shaping your view of the world — the beliefs, values and attitudes that you tend to take for granted. A good place to start in understanding another culture is to reflect on the way you think, feel and behave, and to ask yourself about the assumptions you make about a range of life experiences. There are lots of possible examples, but let’s consider how you show emotion in social settings. Do you use your body? How? Where did you learn this behaviour and what attitude does it suggest? Does the group accept your behaviour? What would be unacceptably demonstrative behaviour in your social group?
Different behaviours in different cultures
Contrast your answers to what you are likely to observe in a situation involving a group of Greek Australians. The probability is that you will see loud, demonstrative behaviour, strong body language and free expression of emotion. Showing emotion is seen as normal and highly acceptable in Greek culture. By contrast, not demonstrating how you feel is considered with some suspicion. Being seen as hiding emotion almost equates with being devious! Points of contrast between cultures are also very useful for understanding who we are and how we perceive the world. Contrasts between Greek culture and mainstream Australia are too numerous to write about here, but one humorous example illustrates the point.
An example: personal space
In mainstream Australia, the chances are that the individual will value their personal space and social distance highly. It is likely that making body contact or intruding into another’s personal space will be frowned upon. So, when you wait for the bus you do so in a queue. When you board the bus you will do so in an orderly fashion, and you will avoid contact with others and apologise for bumping into them. Contrast this with waiting for the bus in Athens. The chances are that you will see a group of people not queuing up neatly. Instead this group will be jostling for a position close to the bus, and when it arrives everyone will want to get on board at the same time, pushing, shoving and being oblivious to others’ personal space. Cultural sensitivity requires a willingness to enter into another person’s world — to be able to see the world from their perspective. This can be confronting because inevitably this challenges your own worldview. We may be aware that other cultures exist but we see our own culture as being the only valid perspective on life.
Caring for elders in a culturally sensitive way
Caring for elders in a culturally sensitive way requires an attitude that says that my culture is one of a number of valid ways of seeing and being in the world. To be interculturally competent you will need:
- Knowledge of the culture your client comes from
- Personal qualities like openness, flexibility, tolerance of ambiguity and a sense of humour
- Behavioural skills, such as communication competencies and the ability to relate to others
- Self-awareness, especially of one’s own values and beliefs
- The ability to separate out a professional response from a personal response to situations that challenge your view of the world
- Positive motivation towards engaging in cross-cultural communication
- The ability to accept the other person’s culture for the purpose of working with them in a professional relationship
- Continued sensitivity to the individual and the ability to avoid stereotyping.
See the other pages in this website for information that will help you become more culturally aware.