From Cultural Competence to Cultural Consciousness: Transitioning to a Critical Approach to Working Across Differences in Social Work

ABSTRACT

Driven by increasing cultural diversity and growing inequities in health and social outcomes, cross-cultural competence has become a fundamental dimension of effective and ethical social work practice. It has assumed a prominent discourse in social work education, scholarship, professional practice, codes of ethics, and organizational policy; however, how one defines, acquires, applies, and evaluates cultural competencies continue to be issues of debate. Grounded in a postmodern epistemic frame, an integrated model of critical cultural consciousness for working across differences in social work is proposed and implications for micro, mezzo, and macro levels of practice are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural competence
• culture and diversity
• social work education
• social work practice

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the Hospital for Sick Children’s New Immigrant Support Network and the University of Toronto, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work’s Bertha Rosenstadt Fund for their financial support.