Cultural competency (CC) is social intelligence.  Culturally competent people have the knowledge and skills needed to have meaningful and productive encounters with people across different cultures.   CC has four components) (a) awareness, (b) attitude, (c) knowledge, (d) skills.  Awareness refers to the ability to recognize your own reactions to people who are different, as well as understanding their implications for effective interactions.  Your values and beliefs about differences reflect your attitude.  Emotional reactions to differences often result from value and belief differences.  The more knowledge you have about how cultural differences make trouble for you, the less likely you will step on multicultural toes. The skillful communication and collaboration with other cultures reflect proficiency.

The Intercultural Competency Assessment Tool (www.dtui.com) is used to assess an individual’s cultural competency.  Interestingly, most people who fill out the form get mixed results.  They tend to offer liberal-minded scores on the awareness, attitude, knowledge, and skills components, yet very low scores on experience (e.g., significant contact with different groups of people).  Another assessment is the combination of completing the implicit bias test and the How Inclusive Are You? checklist. That overcomes the problem of socially desirable self-assessment, which differences between the two assessment results will likely reflect.

How can a person be cultural competent without the experience needed to build their competence?  The results indicate that our perceptions of our ability to manage differences fall short of our actual capabilities.  Since CC is becoming as important as any other means of production poor skills are becoming a liability.  The remainder of this section offers insights into cultural competency and how to build your skills.  Keep in mind that only by practicing the principles will you be able to perfect them.

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