Teaching Note—Teaching Socially Just Culturally Competent Practice Online: Pedagogical Challenges and Lessons Learned During the Pandemic

Praxis of cross-cultural social work practice (CCSWP): A critical discourse analysis of graduate student and faculty perspectives on cultural competence and relevant constructs

“…In this framework of understanding, any use of language should be understood as political (Gee, 1999). To unveil the use of language critically, Fairclough (2013) paid attention to the mediating link between “linguistic analysis” and “social analysis.” Several social work scholars applied this analytic rigor to examine various social work conversation and interactions in practice (for details of this analytic framework in social work, see Lee and Bhuyan, 2013, Lee, 2014, Lee et al, 2019a, 2019b, 2021, 2022; Hall et al, 2013, 2020; Hall and White, 2005; Rodger, 1991; Willey-Sthapit et al, 2022). For linguistic analysis , we paid attention to lexicons and grammar (use of verb/adjective/adverb and use of declarative sentences) including the following: (1) word choices (i.e., lexicon) used as descriptors of cultural competence and alternative concepts; (2) how verbs, adjectives, and or adverbs were deployed in declarative or tentative sentences (i.e., use of grammar); and (3) how different texts were discursively connected to construct the understanding of cultural competence and alternative concepts.…”

“…Danso (2018) argued that the critiques of cultural competence lack analytical rigor and identified many of the shortcomings as related to the fragmentation of the conceptual arguments and the expectation of this as an omnicompetent construct. Other scholars further propose merging cultural competence with alternative constructs including cultural humility (Greene-Moton and Minkler, 2020), critical cultural competence (Danso, 2015), as well as socially just and culturally competent practice (Lee et al, 2021).…”