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Developing Multicultural Sensitivity
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Do whatever you need to do to educate yourself about the community you are serving to rid yourself of societally-constructed stereotypes, e.g. through study, observation, and asking questions. |
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Understand and accept (to a certain extent) a community's resistance to or even rejection of your questions and inquiries. These are defense mechanisms developed usually from the experience of dealing wih hostile or patronizing persons in the power group |
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Give yourself permission to feel uncomfortable with a culture that is new to you. Understand how your own acculturation may conflict with the values of persons from cultures other than yours. |
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Approach members of the community you are serving with openness. Avoid judgementalism even when judgements are borne out by individuals. |
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Be mindful of the manner in which you speak to persons from cultures different than yours, even if you speak the same language. Does your culture language communicate respect for their experience, their culture? Are you speaking to be understood or to impress, confuse, or ditance yourself from their experiences and culture. Does the superior-inferior duality operate in your language? Are you being sensitive to persons for whom English is not the first language or who do not speak English at all? Does your language make people feel empowered or does it make them feel powerless? |
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Communicate respect, i.e. an honoring of what people have come through to have arrived at Rutgers and what that means for them culturally. |
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Develop your listening skills. Learn to hear what the person is saying, not what you think he/she is saying, and not what you want to hear. How do your own cultural values interfere with your ability to listen? |
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Never be reticent about asking if you are being understood and if you are understanding what is being communicated to you. |
(Copyright,
Cheryl Clarke, Rutgers University, 1990, 1996, 1999)