Adult educators and cultural competence within health care systems: Change at the individual and structural levels

Abstract

Hospital and clinic staff find themselves increasingly overwhelmed, with limited time and growing patient loads. While cultural differences may be recognized as a factor in determining how care is perceived and administered to patients and health care consumers, there has been little agreement on how these differences impact health systems and individual care. For example, when a hospital does not regularly collect data on race, ethnicity, and preferred language of incoming patients, what are the effects? First, individual doctors may not be aware that they may need to alter their communication with patients coming from different cultural backgrounds. Second, the connections that could be made between the incidence and prevalence of particular diseases and different racial and ethnic groups are lost, and findings from research based on samples of dominant culture members continue to be falsely extrapolated to all cultural groups. An examination of the knowledge, attitudes, and skills of health professionals in these settings reveals contradictions: a fear of offending patients by asking questions about such sensitive issues as race, despite a profound interest in patient well-being; or a frustration that health data are not broken down by different cultural variables, coupled with the perception that expanding research populations to include minority groups would be too time consuming and costly.This example illustrates health care that is not culturally competent. Goals of cultural competence are commonly described as creation of a health 55 5 NEW DIRECTIONS FOR ADULT AND CONTINUING EDUCATION, no. 130, Summer 2011

Disparities in Healthcare for Racial, Ethnic, and Sexual Minorities

“…L. Hill's () volume of New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education provided helpful insights into “Adult Education for Health and Wellness” as a salient issue for the field. In the monograph, Ziegahn and Ton () examined issues related to cultural competency as a method for counteracting health disparities based on racial and ethnic differences. However, the authors did not address the social and behavioral issues that may contribute to health disparities among not only racial and ethnic minorities but also lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) people.…”

Cultural Literacy in Mother Tongue Education: an Action Research

“…After Hirsch, many people made an explanation for cultural literacy. In studies, cultural literacy is discussed as the context of cultural awareness (Dean, 2017;Liu, 2017;Moncada Linares, 2016;Schaefer & Lynch, 2017;Shulsky, Baker, Chvala, & Willis, 2017), cultural pluralism (Albrecht, 2016;Patel & Meyer, 2011), program development (Maxim, Hoyng, Lancaster, Schaumann, & Aue, 2013;Modiba & Van Rensburg, 2009;Shulsky et al;Ziegahn, & Ton, 2011), critical thinking (Mkandawire & Walubita, 2015;Smith, 2010), racism (Albrecht, 2016;Demerath & Mattheis, 2012;Ohana & Mash, 2015;Varghese, 2016) and sociology (Dockery, 2014;Lizardo, 2017). As it is understood from the studies, cultural literacy is explained with a nationalistic perspective.…”