It is, instead, respect for difference, eagerness to learn, and a willingness to accept that there are many ways of viewing the world. In the workshops and training I facilitate, I am continually reminding and cautioning participants against overgeneralizing or characterizing cultural groups in a rigid, unidimensional, and static way. Consequently, cultural competence or awareness IS NOT becoming a member of another culture by a superficial, wholesale adoption of elements, such as customs, language, dress, or behavior. Such shallow identification could be manipulative and patronizing. Abandoning one's own cultural identity and substituting another is not a form of respect, but rather a statement that culture can be easily shed.
Culture encompasses values, attitudes, and beliefs, as well as customs and behaviors.
While the latter can be readily adopted, the former require deeper and more fundamental awareness and changes. Additionally, cultural competence or awareness recognizes that individuals cannot be categorized into totally discrete groups and that much variability within cultural groups exists. Cultural identification is a complex matrix of intertwining cultural influences that frames individuals' identities and values and influences their choices and behavior in continually evolving and dynamic ways. It involves attitudes, practices, behaviors and policies that enable a student, teacher, school or educational system to respond in respectful and useful ways to diverse teaching and learning needs, styles and issues. A commitment to strengthen cultural diversity can grow out of a vision of equality, a sense of social responsibility, valuing the role of diversity in nature and in life, or legal mandates.