Cultural Competence and Diversity Research Paper

Cultural Competence and Diversity - Research Paper Example The paper also throws light how minority groups are crushed and intimidated at the hands of majority groups. The attitude of professionals while dealing with the problem of bias has also been discussed in the paper. The Paper The term cultural competence simply refers to the ability of the individuals to skillfully interact with their social environment by penetrating into the culture and adopting its patterns in one way or the other without taking the prejudiced behavior into account on the basis of cultural diversity prevailing in society. It is a reality beyond suspicion that the contemporary world has witnessed tremendous alterations in the social establishment, where the people belonging to divergent racial, ethnic, religious and geographical backgrounds reside and work under one and the same environment, and render their services to the institutions, firms and organizations. The presence of different communities requires exercising strict and comprehensive tolerance towards the staff members and colleagues for surviving and growing in profession. Consequently, cultural competence demands the condemnation of the prejudiced behavior of the biased stratum of society in order to serve the people without discrimination. Cultural competence is emerging as a key factor in leadership and professional life. From police officers patrolling the streets, teachers in the classroom and doctors in hospital wards to managers, working in virtual project teams and leaders planning a strategy of international expansion and the need to recognize different attitudes and expectations is an increasingly important aspect of personal effectiveness and organizational success. (Diversity Gains, 2010) Since, every reputed organization requires and hires the services of the professionals, without which there remains no possibility of sticking to one specific race only; nor the individuals can make achievements in life while working for the companies belonging to their own community. The same is applied to the professionals while dealing with the customers and clients of the groups other than one’s own. Hence, swift climbing on the career ladder vehemently requires serving all members of society without discrimination of caste, class, clan, community, race, region, religion, gender, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status. It is particularly the case in the teaching and medical professions. Researches vehemently support the very idea that the companies and individuals having least prejudice and more broad-mindedness are far more successful in social arena in comparison to the groups that observe narrow-sightedness in their behavior while dealing the communities and groups other than that one is following. The same is the case with the societies, where the liberal societies earn sound reputation and respect in social structure and establishment by earning huge amount of profit because of the combined efforts made by the people belonging to diversified groups and cultural backgrounds. On the contrary, the societies relying upon one specific group start lagging far behind than others in the race of progress and prosperity. There was a time when the US society had racially segregated schools, where the blacks and white teachers used to teach the students belonging to their community. Somehow, the second half of twentieth century introduced several reforms in the US society; abolishing of the segregated