Working across different cultures requires that an individual understands the rules and cultural expectations of other people in their workplace. Failure to understand other people’s culture can put an individual at risk of making mistakes that may be harmless but very serious. Therefore, cultural competence is a valuable aspect of life regardless of the circumstance like travelling or working across cultures in an individual’s professional life ( Bø, 2015) . Working with people from different cultures has become more frequent for every professional making cultural competence much more important.
Most people tend to underestimate the impact cultural difference has on their lives and such underestimation forms the beginning of things going wrong ( Bø, 2015) . The unseen elements of culture like values and beliefs are usually hard for people to understand and deal with in the workplace and daily life. Thus, when dealing with cross-cultural situations, people who lack cultural awareness tend to make bad decisions. Cultural awareness can enable an individual to reduce their chances of making bad decisions and make insightful and considered decisions ( Jani, Osteen & Shipe, 2016) .
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An important aspect of cultural awareness is that it does not imply compromising one's culture or sacrificing individual values and identity for another person. Cultural awareness has to do with helping people understand how they can best adapt other people's approaches, thoughts, and decisions in ensuring they create positive outcomes in their cross-cultural interactions. The paper presents an analysis of individual culture where I aim to provide self-reflection of my culture where I describe my values and ways in which my own experiences have shaped personal values.
Description of Family Origin’s Culture Membership
In this section, I wish to provide a description of my family origin's culture membership in which I describe the African-American culture or black culture. The black culture comprises of the contribution of African Americans in the country’s culture. The identity of the African American culture traces from their past experiences during slavery. The culture can be understood by focusing on a combination of western culture and Africa that influenced changes in the American South.
While slavery hindered the ability of African Americans in practising their traditions, their culture survived and has been passed on through generations while blending it in European culture.
The African American religion, economic behaviour, and political behaviour were shaped by African culture, the civil rights movement, a slave rebellion, and slavery. The imprint of Africa is evident in various ways and behaviour of African Americans including economic, politics, music, language, dance, fashion, religion, and hairstyle among others. Thus, African American culture has seen a pervasive and transformational impact on most aspects of American culture. Therefore, my family origin's cultural identity can be well explained through an understanding of the African culture and the way it was shaped by the slavery period and anti-slavery movements.
Description of Family Origin Stands on Various Aspects of Life
With regard to race, the black community believe that the legacy of slavery has an impact on their position in America. Our view on race is that the country has not made enough progress towards racial equality and there is scepticism that black people will ever have equal rights with the whites. Our culture also has a negative opinion regarding race relations insisting that they are bad. Furthermore, we believe that being white help's people's ability in getting ahead such that there are advantages for people who are white than black ( Edwards & Seck, 2018) . The black community believes that their race has a negative impact on their ability to get various opportunities when compared to the whites.
We also believe that being black has subjected us to unfair treatment than white in dealing with police and by the criminal justice system. We also believe that regarding race, it is never acceptable for any white to use the N-word ( Edwards & Seck, 2018) . Furthermore, being black has seen us experience discrimination because of our race and ethnicity. Regarding socioeconomic status, we believe that discrimination and marginalization served as a hindrance to our upward mobility ( Edwards & Seck, 2018) . We believe that minority racial groups are more likely to experience multidimensional poverty compared to whites.
Regarding education, we think that African Americans are more likely to attend high poverty schools as opposed to whites. Socioeconomic realities have deprived African American students of valuable resources yet high achieving African Americans have been exposed to the less rigorous curriculum where they have to attend to schools with fewer resources and teachers that expect less of them ( Edwards & Seck, 2018) . Additionally, there are high chances for African American college graduate to be unemployed in comparison to the whites. In terms of physical health, we believe that racial and ethnic minorities like blacks have worse overall health when compared to the whites as health disparities stem from economic determinants, inadequate access to better care and problems with navigating the system.
We also believe that African Americans have worse outcomes than whites at each level of education and income. Furthermore, there is a substantial racial difference in terms of access to insurance cover between the African Americans and the whites ( Edwards & Seck, 2018) . Regarding mental illness, we tend to believe that racial discrimination and socioeconomic deprivation have great implication for psychological distress as it is evident that African Americans have high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder compared to whites. Regarding religion, most of the African Americans self-identify themselves as Christians and associate ourselves with historically black protestant churches while few of those in our culture identify themselves with evangelical Protestantism ( Edwards & Seck, 2018) . We are also more religious and committed as we believe religion is more important in our lives.
Values Personally Incorporated as a Result of Cultural Membership
One major value that I have incorporated in my life is the personal value regarding maintaining a meaningful and personal relationship with God as this is one of the values I was brought up with in our family. My family has a special belief in religion and Christianity and from that, I developed this central belief in God and I aim to maintain a meaningful relationship as taught by my parents. Aligning with belief in God is my personal value regarding attending church service which I believe strengthens my personal belief in creating a meaningful relationship with God.
I also have a special value regarding human relationship such that I do not support homosexual ideology and lifestyle. My foundation in the Christian family has also led me to believe in salvation and a positive after-life in eternity. Another core value that I have adopted as an African American is that having children without ever being married is not right. Additionally, I have a special value for life such that abortion in the situation of rape or incest falls outside my value system. I also support the issue of interracial marriage as it allows people from different backgrounds to connect and understand one another creating a positive relationship between different cultures.
I certainly insist on the issue of responsibility where I believe that healthy women should not refuse to work outside of the home. Another value I hold the most is that people should not use cuss words and vulgar language, especially in a professional setting. When I workplace, I think human sexuality should be embraced in the workplace and give each individual an opportunity to generate income without feeling alienated. I also think that my belief regarding race is not in conflict with the belief of my family of origin such that there is some form of disparity in society.
Ways in which My Experience of Marginalization has shaped my Personal Values
The person-in-environment perspective has shaped my values, especially in the workplace as I have come to realize that different people have different values and beliefs. For instance, my belief in religion does not permit me to have an objection to another person who shares a different view. Regardless of the person's belief, I tend to find a way of ensuring that our values and beliefs do not interfere with our working together as a team. The view of person-in-environment is that people are usually shaped by their environment such that when working with an individual from another culture like the whites, their opinion regarding the black community does not interfere with my work or push me towards the conflicting situation as I believe their opinion was tailored by the environment they were brought up.
Within the provisions of psychodynamic theory, I believe that given the unconscious mind comprise of mental processes that influence judgements and behaviour, my choice to see the whites as privileged is rooted in my childhood experiences as I saw black families suffer ( Hope, Hoggard & Thomas, 2015) . Therefore, it is worth acknowledging my view that in some way my white co-workers enjoy certain privileges that black workers do not get. I also feel like at times the voices of minority groups in the workplace are not heard which pushes me into valuing my silence.
Challenging Cross-Cultural Issues
One major cross-cultural issue I believe will be most challenging will be integrating across multicultural groups in the face of negative cultural stereotype. For instance, the presence of underlying prejudice between my culture and that of another person will be seriously detrimental to my morale and affect productivity. I believe unconscious cultural biases will be more difficult and challenging when in the position of a social worker. I also believe that professional communication will be misinterpreted across languages and cultures especially when there is a need for some form of translation.
I also believe that the system is not sufficiently adopted to meeting the needs of clients from minority groups as there are serious deficiencies in welfare systems creating additional burden and challenge when working with clients from minority groups. Furthermore, I believe there is a lack of adaptation of rules and methods in meeting the needs of individuals from minority groups.
How to Manage Diversity issues in Social Work
There are various approaches that I can use when handling cultural diversity issues in my social work practice and profession. One approach involves spending time to get to know the clients and service users instead of rushing the interventions ( Caprar et al., 2015) . I will also be continually aware of the social work values that I have signed up to as a social worker and be self-aware by remembering my personal cultural values and beliefs. Another approach to managing the cross-cultural issues will involve reflecting on the power of language as while it as the ability to empower, it can also leave other people wounded.
Furthermore, I will have to avoid making assumptions regarding service users because I perceive they come from a similar background as another user that I already know. Commitment to cultural competence and understanding will be crucial to my social work profession and future career practice. Cultural competence forms the cornerstone of social work as it requires an individual to understand the specific language, cultural, economic, and social nuances of different people ( Caprar et al., 2015) .
As a social worker, I am required to have the unique ability of understanding both the difficulties faced by different groups of people and the way inequalities in the current social system can have a negative effect. Furthermore, I will be having a unique responsibility as a bastion of change and justice while promoting equal rights for all. I will also inspire, support, and engage with others in addressing the cross-cultural challenges.
Conclusion
In this paper, I have introduced the issue of culture and cultural differences among people and the way it affects their behaviour. Cultural awareness is an important aspect when trying to deal with cultural differences in the community. The paper has also provided a brief description of the African American culture which is found to be centred on two aspects of African background and the experiences of slavery. I have also described the African American stand on various aspects like socioeconomic status, race, and mental illness showing that there are great disparities in the community that accounts for the differences between whites and African Americans.
The paper has provided evidence for the way an individual's background can influence their values and belief. For instance, my family has instilled in me certain values and beliefs that hold to date such as the need for healthy women to participate in work. The paper has also introduced the challenges in cross-cultural practise and the way to address them. The main approach to managing challenges in cross-cultural society for social workers has been highlighted to be cultural competence and adhering to social work values.
Reference
Bø, B. P. (2015). Social work in a multicultural society: New challenges and needs for competence. International Social Work , 58 (4), 562-574.
Caprar, D. V., Devinney, T. M., Kirkman, B. L., & Caligiuri, P. (2015). Conceptualizing and measuring culture in international business and management: From challenges to potential solutions.
Edwards, A., & Seck, M. M. (2018). Ethnicity, Values, and Value Conflicts of African American and White Social Service Professionals. The Right for the Elderly to Commit Suicide , 15 (2), 37.
Hope, E. C., Hoggard, L. S., & Thomas, A. (2015). Emerging into adulthood in the face of racial discrimination: Physiological, psychological, and sociopolitical consequences for African American youth. Translational Issues in Psychological Science , 1 (4), 342.
Jani, J. S., Osteen, P., & Shipe, S. (2016). Cultural competence and social work education: Moving toward assessment of practice behaviours. Journal of Social Work Education , 52 (3), 311-324.
