forbidden words: cultural competence

cultural adj. 1: of or relating to culture or culturing 2: concerned with the fostering of plant or animal growth.

from Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield, Mass., G. & C. Merriam Co, 1967.

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competence n. The young surgeon showed exceptional competence: ability, ableness, cap[ability, competency, proficiency, skill, expertness, mastery, expertise; Slang the goods, what it takes.
Ant. incompetence, inability, incapacity, inadequacy.

from – Family Word Finder: Reader’s Digest. The Reader’s Digest Association, 1975.

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Cultural competence: ability to understand, communicate with, and effectively interact with people across cultures. It encompasses an awareness of one’s own cultural worldview, the ability to recognise and appreciate cultural differences, and the skills required to navigate diverse cultural contexts.

Cultural competence involves three key components:

1. Awareness: Understanding one’s own cultural biases and perspectives. This self-awareness allows individuals to acknowledge how their cultural background influences their perceptions and interactions with others.
2. Knowledge: Gaining information about different cultures, including values, beliefs, and practices. This knowledge is crucial for building respectful and productive relationships with individuals from diverse backgrounds.
3. Skills: Developing the ability to communicate effectively and empathically with individuals from different cultural backgrounds. This includes active listening, adapting communication styles, and demonstrating cultural sensitivity.

The Importance of Cultural Competence in DEI

• Enhanced Collaboration: Culturally competent individuals can collaborate more effectively within diverse teams, leading to improved problem-solving and innovation.
• Greater Employee Engagement: A workplace that values cultural competence is likely to have higher employee satisfaction and retention rates, as employees feel understood and respected.
• Improved Service Delivery: In sectors like healthcare, education, and customer service, cultural competence enhances the quality of service provided to diverse clientele, ensuring their unique needs are met.

from – The Oxford Review.com, Cultural Competence – Definition and Explanation

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example sentences: cultural competence

Given these and other momentous changes, one would expect to find “culture” very carefully and sensitively defined in the literature on cultural competence.
From the Cambridge English Corpus

Recall that it was the reality of intragroup differences that effectively sank the categorical approach to cultural competence.
From the Cambridge English Corpus

Accepting the value of cultural competence in healthcare involves (along with other beliefs) a fundamental normative belief in the equal moral worth of all persons.
From the Cambridge English Corpus

Lack of cultural competence is another major flaw in scholarship on youth of color.
From the Cambridge English Corpus

Early training programs in cultural competence tended to rely on categorical constructs that lumped patients together by their “typical” cultural values, customs, and beliefs.
From the Cambridge English Corpus

From this perspective, cultural competence in the area of informed consent requires more than sensitivity to language and social norms.
From the Cambridge English Corpus

Despite strong ethical arguments for how cultural competence training can reduce disparities in healthcare, convincing evidence is lacking.
From the Cambridge English Corpus

Assessing cultural competence therefore necessitates investigating both their knowledge of culture in general and the specific situations which they themselves have experienced.
From the Cambridge English Corpus

Additionally, “cultural competence” requires the implementation of culturally meaningful strategies to promote knowledge and comprehension of study goals and risks for individuals and communities.
From the Cambridge English Corpus

There is also a deep-seated moral commitment underlying the aforementioned medical, instrumental value of cultural competence.
From the Cambridge English Corpus

There is no “one size fits all” template for cultural competence.
From the Cambridge English Corpus

In short, different players in the healthcare system may realize the value of cultural competence in different ways, depending on their range of professional activities.
From the Cambridge English Corpus

My aim in this article is to explore the ethical commitments that are implied in accepting cultural competence at the clinical level.
From the Cambridge English Corpus

But what other, more specific commitments are implied in accepting the value of cultural competence?
From the Cambridge English Corpus

Cultural competence is an important issue for both medical and nonmedical reasons.
From the Cambridge English Corpus

She also suggests how models of cultural competence should be revised and addresses for whom they are important.
From the Cambridge English Corpus

This much is plain, insofar as we are talking about the broadest of commitments necessary to support the value of cultural competence in healthcare.
From the Cambridge English Corpus

How is all this relevant to issues of tolerance and cultural competence?
From the Cambridge English Corpus

from – CULTURAL COMPETENCE collocation | meaning and examples of use. (2025).

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April 23, 2025
Hudson Valley, New York

This is one of the words / combination of words you can’t say in the new Trump Administration. See a comprehensive list at the Forbidden Words Project.

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