Cultural Competence

When you obtain your PhD in social work or your DSW, you may decide to teach. There are many avenues to pursue teaching. There is the traditional route—obtaining a faculty position in higher education, for example, or a faculty position in an accredited social work program. There are other less traditional routes, such as supervising social work students who are in field placement at your agency or developing instructional curricula for universities/colleges or in other settings. Regardless of the setting in which you teach, a theory often informs your teaching style.

Theories conceptualizing cultural competence play just such a role in shaping teaching strategies. The Council on Social Work Education requires social work programs to address diversity in their content, which underscores the importance of cultural competence in the field. More than likely, all agree on the assumption that social workers need to be culturally competent in their practice. However, there is no one way to go about teaching cultural competency to social work students.

In this Discussion, you have an opportunity to examine different theories and approaches in the definition and conceptualization of cultural competence in social work. After reviewing many approaches, Kohli, Huber, and Faul (2010) started to delineate recommendations for social work education. They advocated that “social work students need to be educated to become self-aware and have an appreciation of their own value systems,” and “they need to be immersed in cultural experiences where they observe the uniqueness of every individual” (p. 268). These two recommendations are abstract. As a future social work educator, you will need to generate specific ideas for teaching cultural competency at either the undergraduate or graduate level. Additionally, you will reinforce your practice of annotating sources as you research—a habit that will benefit you as you work to think more critically in your reviews and catalog resources to reference for your dissertation or DSW capstone project.

To prepare:      

• Review the following article from the Learning Resources: “Historical and Theoretical Development of Culturally Competent Social Work Practice” by Kohli, Huber, and Faul.
• Conduct research in the Walden library on best practices for teaching concepts related to diversity, cultural competence, and social justice.
• Review the Walden University Writing Center Annotated Bibliography resource in your Learning Resources this week.
• Write an annotation to the article you identified on best practices for teaching concepts related to diversity, cultural competence, and social justice.
• Select one social work approach from Table 3 of Kohli et al. (on pages 262–265). Explain in 2–3 sentences your rationale for selecting this approach for informing your teaching strategies.
• Describe in 3–4 sentences one specific teaching strategy to promote self-awareness among social work students, as well as the general sociodemographic of the student body. Use the article you found as a starting point to conduct additional research in this area. Provide scholarly evidence to support your recommendation of this strategy. Be sure to indicate whether you are targeting undergraduate or graduate social work students.
• Evaluate how the above teaching strategy aligns with the approach you selected.
• Describe in 3–4 sentences one specific teaching strategy to help students observe the uniqueness of individuals. Be sure to indicate whether you are targeting undergraduate or graduate social work students, as well as the general sociodemographic of the student body. Use the article you found as a starting point to conduct additional research in this area. Provide scholarly evidence to support your recommendation of this strategy.
• Evaluate how the above teaching strategy aligns with the approach you selected.
• Explain how the teaching strategy can advance social change.