# Presentation: 162608

## Cultural Competency

- Pamela Alston, DDS, MPP
- Principal Dental Consultant
- SF Region Dental Consultant

## What is cultural competence?

- Awareness and sensitivity to cultural variation
- Complex combination of knowledge, attitudes, and skills
- Navigating norms, values, assumptions, beliefs, standards, and attitudes that guide the behavior of students
- Ability to intervene appropriately and effectively

## Culture

- A system of symbols passed through generations
- Mediates between human beings and chaos
- Influences what people perceive
- Guides people’s interactions with each other
- A process rather than a static entity

## Subculture

- A cultural subgroup differentiated by status, ethnic background, residence, religion, or other factors that functionally unify the group and act collectively on each member
- One culture of microorganisms derived from another

## Subculture

- An identifiable subgroup of society with a distinctive set of behavior, beliefs, values, and norms
- Though a subculture is subordinate to the dominant culture of a society, it sometimes allows individuals greater group identification, e.g., those who take part in particular sports, for example, are sometimes referred to as a subculture

## Subculture

- A group within a society that has its own shared set of customs, attitudes, and values, often accompanied by jargon or slang
- A subculture can be organized around a common activity, occupation, age, status, ethnic background, race, religion, or any other unifying social condition

## Hip Hop Culture

**Hip hop** (also spelled **hip-hop** or **hiphop**)
- Both a music genre and a cultural movement developed in New York City starting in the 1970s, predominantly by African Americans and Latinos
- Since first emerging in the Bronx, hip hop music has grown into an entire lifestyle, commonly referred to as hip hop culture, which has today spread around the world and is practiced by many people regardless of nationality, ethnicity or religion
- Hip hop as a cultural movement encompasses a wide array of human activities, so called *elements*

## Hip-Hop Culture

- Hip Hop includes DJ'ing (the beat, the music), B-Boying (the dance, also known as breakin), Graffiti art (muralism, tags) and Rap (the word, the voice)
- Rapping is what an emcee (mc, lyricist) does when he orates to the beat

## Hip Hop

- A popular youth culture, closely associated with rap music
- And with the style and fashions of African-American inner-city residents
- The term “hip-hop” also refers to the speech and personal style adopted by many youths, particularly in urban areas

## “People have to understand what you mean when you talk about Hip Hop.  Hip Hop means the whole culture of the movement.”

- -Afrika Bambaataa
- Godfather of Hip-Hop

## “Hip-hop music is made from black, brown, yellow, red and white.”

- -Afrika Bambaataa
- Godfather of Hip-Hop

## “We gotta stop fighting amongst each other.  I think the only rift should be when we take it to the stage and try to out perform each other.”

- -Grandmaster Flash

## “We may have all come in different ships but we’re all in the same boat now.”

- -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

## “Say there’s a white kid who lives in a nice home, goes to an all-white school, and is pretty much having everything handed to him on a platter—for him to pick up a rap tape is incredible to me because what that’s saying is that he’s living a fantasy life of rebellion.”

- -Eminem

## Historically Impoverished People Help (each other) Overcome Poverty. HIP HOP

- -Revolve 616

## “Hip Hop is supposed to uplift people and create, to educate people on a larger level and to make a change.”

- -Doug E. Fresh

## “If you think about the history of Hip Hop, we’ve had artists who can talk about socially significant ideas to something as cool as sneakers.”

- -Grandmaster Flash

## “I think I’m a natural born leader.  I know how to bow down to authority if it’s authority I respect.”

- -Tupac Shakur

## “It’s like that and that’s the way it is.”

- -Run DMC

## “The beauty of MC’ing is that you can actually rhyme your way into an entirely different identity that empowers YOU.”

- KRS One

## Hip Hop Cultural Competence

- Affirming the student’s cultural identification
- Figuring out how a student’s Hip Hop identification will affect their oral health care and treatment decisions
- Finding something positive in the Hip Hop culture
- Building rapport by getting the students to talk about positive experiences in their lives and how Job Corps fits into their bright future
- Collaborate with the student on treatment planning and deliver optimal patient care

## Crossing the Cultural Divide

- Show respect
- Help the student climb the ladder from unaware to aware and then on to interest, belief, and trust
- Make some self-disclosures
- Find common ground
- Questions are powerful in communication and establishing rapport

## Dorothy Leads’ 7 Powers of Questions

- Questions demand answers
- Questions stimulate thinking
- Questions give us valuable information
- Questions put you in control
- Questions get people to open up
- Questions lead to quality listening
- Questions get people to persuade themselves