Cultural Competency Portfolio - Essay Example

Psychology Cultural Competency Portfolio The modern society is a rather heterogeneous than homogeneous structure, i.e. it incorporates multiple systems of beliefs, values, norms and customs. These cultural diversities inevitably emerge as the result of differing influential factors that form the world outlook in the members of certain groups. As the different – or even opposing – cultural systems collide, the conflict occurs. In this case, there is a cultural conflict embodying a critical study of controversies between separate people, groups of people, personality and the group, personality and society or even different societies. In contrast to other types of conflicts, cultural conflicts are characterized by ideological causality implying profound incompatibility of religious views, traditions, norms and rules of some kind of socially meaningful activity, i.e. incompatibility of ideologies. The case chosen for this paper involves two opposing parties that have already been involved in a legal investigation of the situation, being unable to resolve the conflict by themselves. The conflict under consideration includes Christian Legal Society (CLS), “a nationwide, non-denominational organization of Christian lawyers, judges and law students” (Marci, 2010), and Hastings College of Law in California. As far as student groups and associations that are officially accepted by the college administration have certain privileges and even can apply for funding program run by the college, CLS asked for registration as a recognized group. However, the college refused to register CLS because of its policy, keeping non-celibate homosexuals and non-Christians from joining. As a result, the controversy emerged between the general college policy of “all-comers” (ensuring the right to join the groups for everyone) and the policy of a separate social group. As one of the conflicting parties, CLS appeals to the right for free association declared by the United States Bill of Rights (prescribing freedom of assembly into various types of groups from trade unions to sports clubs). As for their position, they consider Hastings College to have violated this right guaranteed by one of the constitutional amendments. On the other hand, the college states this organization’s policy to be incompatible with their requirements for registered groups, though CLS was allowed to function within the campus and use college premises for meetings. Here, looking at the positions of two parties, one can see the conflict between the religious norms and beliefs fixed within the Christian environment of CLS and the policy of general tolerance supported by the college administration. The conflict we deal with obviously belongs to intergroup sociocultural conflicts, involving rivalry between social groups (or – in our case – the institution and the social group) based on incompatibility of their values and – respectively – aims. The conflict had a long-term form, lasting for several years, and involved the third party that was entitled to resolve it based on the arguments provided by the parties. Moreover, this case illustrates intergroup struggle for not only priority of these or those cultural norms, but also the struggle of a social group for values and certain power as well as claim for a certain social status – namely, the status of a registered college society giving certain advantages to its members. In the psychological framework, the issue could be viewed from the standpoint of the social identity theories, where culture is observed as the intergroup relations. According to theorists of social identity theory, people identify tend to identify themselves with certain groups, engaging themselves into categorization (Tajfel, 1978). Identity is formed under the influence of the position of and attitudes towards the group, to which a person belongs. In this case, there is a social group, incorporating people with similar types of identities – they are adherents of Christian beliefs and thus have a certain set of norms and values fixed in their minds and world perceptions. The facet of identity that is formed in these Christian people by the discussed group, i.e. CLS, is the image of a lawyer destined to do justice “with the love of God”. Moreover, the features of an identity formed by the influence of this categorization and group membership exclude certain qualities from the list of possible ones for a potential member: the influence of conservative Christian traditions denies the possibility of membership for those who are not Christian and for homosexual people who do not live in celibacy. In fact, it could be said that this organization combines the features of a professional association and a religious group. According to Cooper and Denner (1998), “Situational cues can shift the salience of an identity, but individuals also see themselves and others in consistent terms and create situations that support these views”. In our case, the policy of tolerance supported by the college and subsequent refusal to register CLS was perceived as a threat to the views and interests of the organization. Cultural diversities reflected in general tolerance to all students on the part of Hastings College and in certain selectiveness on the part of CLS sparked the conflict, driving it directly to court. Exactly as it is mentioned in general cultural conflict theory, incompatible sets of values led to misunderstanding – whereas the college didn’t accept CLS’ policy for excluding certain categories of potential participants, CLS viewed reluctance to comply with its policy (based on cultural and religious values, of course) as an insult and discrimination. However, it could be mentioned then, that CLS’ policy is discriminative, too. Furthermore, the conflict can be viewed from the standpoint of the democratic society. Since the United States have been claiming to be highly democratic and the democracy is promoted in the country at all levels, tolerance is seen as an integral part of the U.S. democratic system. Of course, it is dictated also by the status of a melting pot, a multicultural and multinational nature of the population. Policy of tolerance is supported and promoted across the nation, and there is nothing extraordinary (even more, it is expected and normal) in the fact, that an educational institution – regardless of the form of funding and the major – complies with nationwide policy of tolerance in its activity. Looking from this perspective, one sees that the tactics of Hastings is completely justified by intention to preserve the policy of tolerance and keep the group with discriminative policy from being registered. In addition, analyzing the resolution of the conflict from the legal perspective, it is reasonable to state that a social or religious group has the right to operate according to its own rules on an independent basis’ on the other hand, when seeking to be registered in a state or private educational institution, it must comply with the code of the organization from which it seeks approval and certain privileges. The resolution of the conflict implemented by the courts (both lower courts and the Supreme Court) sided Hastings College. Thus, CLS as a social group failed to defend their interests in this kind of social conflict and, of course, the social group perceive the outcome of the conflict as a defeat, remaining psychologically discontented. However, considering cultural nature of the conflict, the resolution could include cooperation of the two parties, learning about the values and rules adhered by both of them and creating a constructive strategy for handling the misunderstanding. “The resolution process should start from the parties acknowledgment that their conflict contains a cultural dimension” (Williams, 1994). Accepting this, parties should learn all the aspects of each other’s policies and probably alter organizational practices to some extent. For instance, CLS members should be familiar with the policy of tolerance, its roots and principles. And, of course it is impossible to omit certain hierarchy between CLS and the college, as being registered and – even more important – funded by the college is one of the aims for CLS. Hastings doesn’t promote discriminative policy for CLS religious group in comparison to other religious groups. At the same time, the college administration should still provide premises for meetings to the group not to violate their right for free assembly. In addition, even if CLS loosens its membership policy for this particular college, students are unlikely to join the groups which promote beliefs and principles adhered by them: e.g., a non-Christian student is unlikely to join the association of Christian lawyers. In conclusion, I would like to say that my personal beliefs are based on tolerance as a key foundation of my attitude. To my thinking, professionals in numerous fields should be tolerant towards diversity issues: religion, race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and others, because this is the point ensuring objective view on the situation and equal treatment and respect for all people we work with. In other words, taking into account and respecting cultural diversities, one is able to form an opinion that won’t be lap-sided and develop the most reasonable, fair and objective resolution for cultural conflicts. References: Cooper, C. R. & Denner, J. (1998). Theories Linking Culture and Psychology: Universal and Community-Specific Processes. Annual Reviews, Psychology, 49:559-84. Retrieved November 21 from: http://www.bridgingworlds.org/pdfs/1processes.pdf Marci, D. (2010). High Court Rules Against Campus Christian Group, Pew Research. Retrieved November 21 from: http://www.pewforum.org/2010/06/28/high-court-rules-against-campus-christian-group/ Tajfel H. (Ed.) (1978). Differentiation Between Social Groups: Studies in the Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations. New York: Academic. Williams, A. (1994). "Resolving Conflict in a Multicultural Environment." MCS Conciliation Quarterly. Retrieved November 21 from: http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/example/will5746.htm Read More