The Place of 'Cultural Competency' in the Toolkit for Immigrant Integration

20 Pages Posted: 9 Jan 2015

Date Written: November 4, 2014

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to trace the evolution of the concept and practice of “cultural competency” and to explore its potential to serve as an organizing principle for policies and programs to integrate immigrants and their children. As some leaders and policy makers look for ways to “mainstream” immigrant integration, i.e. move away from stand-alone immigrant service programs, cultural competency -- understood as an approach to systems reform and quality improvement in workforce education, health care, and human services in general -- may provide an attractive solution.

The goal of cultural competency in health and human services emerged in the 1960s as an outgrowth of the Civil Rights Revolution in the United States. The leaders of the cultural competency movement were concerned about inequities in the quality and availability of services and resources for Black and other long-established minorities. They also sought to validate minority cultures and harness the potential of these cultures to build stronger communities and empower people to achieve their potential. Over time, the cultural competency frame has been adapted to meet the needs of the growing immigrant population in the U.S. Several significant milestones along the way include the issuance of executive order 13116 by President Clinton in 1999, which led to the codification of requirements for language access accommodations, and the release of the first standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) by the Department of Health and Human services in 2002. More significantly, researchers have struggled to define the meaning of cultural competency and to develop standards for evaluating an organization’s progress on the “cultural competency continuum.” At the same time, there has been a significant shift away from an earlier emphasis on staff training, values clarification, and individual transformation to a new effort to identify the system requirements for cultural competency. Cultural competency offers several advantages as a framework for immigrant integration: first, it encompasses generations beyond the immigrant generation, hence incorporating native-born citizens into its reach; second, it speaks to the needs of long-established minority populations, such as Blacks in the United States; third, it expands outward to include other forms of diversity, including disability, class, and region; and fourth, it speaks to the globalization of contemporary societies and the importance of cultural sensitivity as a way of interacting with diverse populations. The paper will probe each of these advantages, as well as arguments that might be raised against the pursuit of cultural competency by “multicultural skeptics.”

In summary, this paper will trace the evolution of the concept of cultural competency, give examples as to how it has proven useful in designing services for immigrant communities, and describe an emerging consensus on system requirements for cultural competency, as reflected in the revised CLAS standards issued in 2013 and in such projects as the “Finding Answers” program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which funded 33 projects to test interventions to reduce disparities in health care, many of which targeted immigrant populations in the U.S. The paper will also assess the utility of cultural competency as a strategy for mainstreaming immigrant integration.

Keywords: Immigrant Integration, Cultural Competency, Mainstreaming

JEL Classification: I-100

Suggested Citation

Montalto, Nicholas Vincent, The Place of 'Cultural Competency' in the Toolkit for Immigrant Integration (November 4, 2014). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2546498 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2546498

Nicholas Vincent Montalto (Contact Author)

Diversity Dynamics ( email )

16 South Avenue, Suite 252
Cranford, NJ 07016
United States

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