support@essaywritingexpert.orgNederland McCray
November 19,2023
SWK5012
Capella University
A set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency,
or among professionals and enable the system, agency, or professionals to work effectively in crosscultural situations. Since then, others have interpreted this definition in a particular field or attempted
to refine, expand, or elaborate on earlier conceptions of cultural competence. In addition, there have
been many evolving definitions of cultural competence since then, focusing on complex and
multidimensional views related to how race, ethnicity, and culture shape our beliefs, values, and
Week 6 Assignment: Culturally R…
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norms. At the core, though, is the idea that cultural competence is demonstrated through practical
means. A principle challenge for the social work professional is to understand the minds and cultural
competence, their desire for education and economic advancement, their interest in mainstream issues while
maintaining their own traditions and their inevitable impact on modern day culture. All social workers have to
appreciate the vital role and power of immigrant communities in the U.S. while simultaneously serving
thousands of immigrants who walk into social agencies each day with a range of human needs (Hendricks,
2009).
Becoming culturally competent is a developmental process – a journey – that begins with awareness
and commitment to evolve into skill-building and culturally responsive behavior. This can be applied directly
to the research process. Cultural competence literature highlights how difficult it is to appreciate and address
cultural differences effectively because many individuals tend to see things solely from their culture-bound
perspectives. Becoming culturally competent is complex (Flynn, et al., 2020) with movement back and forth
along a continuum as identified in Cross et al. work. The stages within the continuum include cultural
destructiveness, cultural incapacity, cultural blindness, cultural pre-competence, and cultural proficiency. As
individuals, we move along this continuum (Villagran , 2022).
Culturally sensitive research involves integrating cultural beliefs, characteristics, attitudes, values,
traditions, experiences, and the normalization target population of research, implementation, evaluation, and
materials. The cultural aspects should consider the limits of knowledge on both sides of the exchange
and openness and curiosity to understanding the perspective of others and how those might influence
a willingness to consider, enroll, or stay in a research study. Being culturally responsive requires
having the ability to understand cultural differences. Recognize potential biases, and look beyond
differences to work productively with children, families, and communities whose cultural contexts
are different from one’s own. The cultural description of what comprises culturally relevant research
To our knowledge, Meleis’s framework is one of the few that has integrated the concept of cultural
competence into research methods.
The framework has been used to evaluate culturally competent knowledge development,
culturally specific measurements, and the evaluation of the rigor and credibility of research with
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diverse populations. Although Meleis developed these criteria for nursing scholars, we believe them
to be valid for culturally competent social work research because they focus on values relevant to
social work practice, such as awareness of power differences and empowerment perspectives.
Although Meleis’s original framework provided criteria for culturally competent scholarship, it
offered no specific strategies to apply such criteria in research methods (Casado et al, 2012). Several
factors that affect the participation of African Americans in studies have been identified including
elements of study design, logistical problems, low levels of health literacy, sociocultural factors, and
specific attitudes that hinder research participation. Mistrust of academic and research institutions
and investigators is the most significant attitudinal barrier to research participation reported by
African Americans.
The barriers and facilitators to clinical research participation have utilized both quantitative
and qualitative methodologies. Prior quantitative studies have revealed a number of barriers to
clinical research participation, including a lack of awareness about clinical research studies, mistrust,
experimentation and a fear of treatment side-effects. Qualitative studies that allow researchers to
more descriptively understand the experiences of minority research participants have indicated that
distrust appears to be related to historic occurrences involving unethical practices, such as the
Tuskegee Syphilis study, the belief that research efforts would not directly benefit minority
communities, and concerns that physicians may not be interested in, or willing to, introduce minority
participants to research opportunities (Hughes, Varma, Pettigrew, Albert,2015).
The present study was designed to address these gaps through a series of focus groups that
included two types of participants: Community members which both are currently involved in
clinical research and those not previously involved in clinical research, all of whom were African
American and community leaders, including clergy and church leaders, as well as community service
and health care providers that serve individuals from diverse populations, the majority of whom were
African American. The aims of the focus group discussions were to explore perceptions of barriers to
clinical research participation among African Americans, perceptions of facilitators for participation
in clinical research, and recommendations regarding potential ways to effectively increase African
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American participation in clinical research studies. Community members and community leaders
indicated multiple factors that may facilitate participation, which can be broadly classified as
intrinsic and external factors.
Regarding social justice and research, there is an important role in the creation and
dissemination of knowledge through research. Borrowing from the social justice research
framework presented by Vera and Speight, we believe that social justice quantitative research
should not be focused on producing knowledge for knowledge’s sake, but instead should be relevant
to the community, impact public policy or have public policy implications. Researchers who use
quantitative methods should not naively believe that those methods are value free, but rather
should be explicit about aligning with values that promote social justice, liberation, and
community empowerment (Cokley & Awad, 2013).
References:
Banghwa Lee Casado, Nalini Junko Negi, Michin Hong, Culturally Competent Social Work
Research: Methodological Considerations for Research with Language Minorities, Social Work,
Volume 57, Issue 1, January 2012, Pages 1–10, https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/swr002
Cokley, K., & Awad, G. (2013). In Defense of Quantitative Methods: Using the “Master’s Tools” to
Promote Social Justice. View of in defense of quantitative methods: Using the “master’s tools” to
promote social justice. https://openjournals.bsu.edu/jsacp/article/view/487/465
Hughes, T., Varma, V., Pettigrew, C., & Albert, M. (2015, November 9). African Americans and
Clinical Research: Evidence Concerning Barriers and Facilitators to Participation and Recruitment
Recommendations . Academic.oup.com.
https://academic.oup.com/gerontologist/article/57/2/348/2631976
Hendricks, C. (2009, November). Direct practice with immigrants and refugees: Cultural
competence. https://www.naswnyc.org/general/custom.asp?page=111
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Villagran , M. (2022, June). Cultural Competence in Research .
https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1474 context=ischoolsrj
Travonia B. Hughes, Vijay R. Varma, Corinne Pettigrew, Marilyn S. Albert, African Americans and
Clinical Research: Evidence Concerning Barriers and Facilitators to Participation and Recruitment
Recommendations, The Gerontologist, Volume 57, Issue 2, 1 April 2017, Pages 348–358,
https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnv118
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