MECP 600: Foundations of Multicultural Education

Cultural humility is a concept coined and developed by Dr. Melanie Tervalon and Dr. Jann Murray-Garcia rooted in their experiences as practitioners in the medical field beginning in the 1990s. Cultural humility as a practice stresses a commitment to lifelong learning and self-critique that aims to correct power imbalances inherent in structured, institutionalized relationships such as the patient-physician relationship in medicine.

Tervalon and Murray-Garcia’s work in the concept of cultural humility has influenced scholarship as well as professional development and practice in the fields of education, health care, communications, law, and social work for example.

Citation:

Tervalon, M. & Murray-Garcia, J. (1998). Cultural Humility Versus Cultural Competence: A Critical Distinction in Defining Physician Training Education Outcomes in Multicultural Education. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 9(2), 117-125.

Professional work in Cultural Humility involves the development of four characteristics:

1. Self-Reflexivity: Engaging in self-awareness of our own personal and professional values, beliefs, assumptions, biases, apprehensions, etc. that come from our own socialization and professional work with diverse clientele.

2. Appreciation of Other’s Lay Expertise: Learning how our clientele are the “experts” on their own lived experiences as well as their experiences with institutional policies and practices that may marginalize them due to their demographic differences.

3. Sharing Power with Clientele: Studying and addressing power imbalances experienced by our clientele in institutions because of their demographic differences.

4. Collaboration with Cultural Communities: Identifying immersive, collaborative learning opportunities and activities in the cultural communities of our clientele.

Ten Key Intercultural Learning Opportunities (KILOs)

The KILOs are ways to develop characteristics of cultural humility.

Step 1: You need to do any 3 of the below Key intercultural Learning Opportunities and provide evidence of your sources and learning. Review your syllabus for approaches to each KILO.

1. Training Programs - Search for training programs that are designed to help practitioners develop and understanding of cultural humility.

2. Workplace Activities  - Talk with colleagues and leadership to identify activities, committees, and partnerships.

3. Books - See Find Books & Dissertations tab

4. Theatre, Film, and Arts - Look to documentaries, video series, interviews, and Tedtalk style presentations through streaming services and the library's video subscriptions. You can also look to podcasts through many free streaming services. 

5. Educational Classes- Check for opportunities with your local universities/colleges, community education, and online providers. Contact a department or professor teaching a course of interest. Ask for a copy of a syllabus and/or reading list. Look for classes in Sociology, Ethnic Studies, Indigenous Studies, Multicultural Studies, Global Studies, Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies and more.

6. Personal Interactions - There are opportunities all around us each day. Volunteer in a community. Check with your public library, community education, student clubs and services for events.

7. Intercultural Journaling - Set aside time to reflect on your experiences from reading, watching, experiencing. Note: Intercultural Journaling can be coupled with any of the other nine Key Intercultural Learning Opportunities.

8. Travel - See your syllabus for examples. If you are not able to travel, search for virtual museums in a culture, country, or subject area in which you are interested.

9. Coaching - Are you connected to coaches trained in cultural humility?

10. Site Visits - Find cultural organizations, institutions, or sites of religious or spiritual worship. Search for opportunities to interact and learn about them.

Finding "trade" and "popular" (layperson's) resources can be tricky. Below you will find some beginning recommendations! Remember that when searching for information about the practice of cultural humility, authors may come from many different professions (e.g. medical practitioner, social worker, educator, scholar of teaching and learning), and the information may be shared in a variety of formats (e.g. magazine, trade journal, general webpage, etc.). 

To review searching for academic books and articles, look to the earlier tabs in this guide! Remember that the Find Books & Dissertations tab can also help you find more trade and popular books like memoirs, biographies, and handbooks!

You can find some trade and popular sources by limiting your search in academic databases to magazines, reports, trade journals, and videos. For the library's main OneSEARCH (Library Catalog): 

Step 1: Go to the front page of the library website
Step 2: Enter your keywords into the OneSEARCH bar. From the results page use the "Refine My Results" limiter (left column) to narrow to Magazine Article.

When searching "cultural humility" and narrowing to magazine articles, some of the first results include articles from The New Social Worker and Multicultural Education. You can repeat this process in databases like ERIC (EBSCO), Education Full Text, ScienceDirect, and Business Source Premier. 

Sometimes this method can be limited as not all academic databases keep track of as many trade journals, magazines, and news articles as they do academic articles. 

Curious about example trade publications? WebWire has long lists of trade publications organized by industry.

There may be even more options available through search engines like Google. Take advantage of their advanced searches (see Google Advanced Search)!

To find web articles run by professional organizations (e.g. National Education Association) or medical centers you can search by the name of the organization and add "cultural humility" to the search. If you do not have one organization in mind, try adding ".org" in the advanced search: 

• To discover university resources, use ".edu" instead.
• To discover news resources, try ".com" or ".org"

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If you want to refine your search in the main search bar, note that a regular Google search does not always understand Boolean Operators (AND, NOT, OR). If you use them, make sure they are CAPITALIZED. Google also uses its own operators.

For example, instead of using ("cultural humility" NOT "cultural competence"), you may need to use ("cultural humility" -"cultural competence"). 

In addition to text, videos and podcasts may offer useful information. Here are a few tips:

Videos: Instructional films, interviews, and documentaries

Youtube

There are a lot of ways to use operators to search Youtube. After you search, it may help to use the filters in the upper right-hand corner. Remember to log-out of your account when you search, or else your watch-history may alter the results. 

Search engines

You can certainly find sources through search engines by using terms like "documentary" and "broadcast" in your search. Google has a "Video" filter at the top, along with "Images" and "News." 

Library subscriptions

Additionally, the library has access to some academic film resources that can include documentaries. If you use the main library catalog search, here are some steps you can follow: 

Step 1: Go to the WSU Library Catalog - Use the Advanced Search.
Step 2: Enter your keywords, From the Material Type drop-down menu, select Video/Film and search. Or search your keywords.  From the results page use the "Refine My Results" limiter (left column) to narrow to Videos.

Podcasts

Digital audio programs like podcasts have become a popular way to learn about niche topics. Some go-to places to find podcasts include:

• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts
• Google Podcasts
• iHeart

Note that many content creators host the same podcast materials across multiple platforms in order to reach a wider audience. 

Key Intercultural Learning Opportunities (KILOs)

Training Programs 
Workplace Activities  
Theatre, Film and Arts 
Educational Classes
Personal Interactions
Intercultural Journaling
Books 
Travel
Coaching
Site Visits

Step 1: Select the keywords which best describe your search. For example: 

• "Cultural humility"

If you hit dead-ends, consider broadening your search using other key-terms. Review the articles to see if they mention cultural humility. Remember, not all academic databases do "full text" searches of the article text itself! Example broader terms and related terms include:

• "Cultural awareness"
• "Cross-cultural communication" 
• "Cultural competence"

If a resource does not mention cultural humility specifically, you may still be able to see whether the text refers to overlapping values like self-reflexivity and cultural community collaboration. 

Step 2: Select a database or platform to search. 

Step 3: Review your results, review your keywords, and try again. Remember to save useful articles and citations in a central location.

Step 4: As you research you will add additional keywords associated to different parts of the assignment.

You will be able to find a lot of news resources online through search engines. In addition, though, the library also provides access to students to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal!