Inside-out approach/cultural proficiency

Inside-out approach/Cultural Proficiency

Inside-out approach: Cultural proficiency Cultural proficiency is an inside-out approach in that it “ focuses first on those who are insiders to the school or organization, encouraging them to reflect on their own individual understandings and values” (p. 5). Cultural conflicts exist everywhere. Rather than making people adapt to one’s culture, it is more convenient as well as practicable for one to assess one’s own values and behaviors, and those of the others, and respect the differences. Ideally, one should try to adapt to the others’ culture if that is better ethically, socially, and morally. Since cultural proficiency is about changing self or adapting, so it is an inside-out approach.
My growth as a student is related to cultural proficiency. As the schools have become increasingly multicultural over the years, I have been educated in an environment where there were students from different parts of the world and belonging to different religions. As a child, I used to think of the disparity between my classmates and I in terms of religion, race, and ethnicity. To know them more, I made friends with those students. This provided me with the opportunity to have an insight into their religious views, perceptions of race and ethnicity, and the world. I tried to look at the world from their eye, and the more I did it, the more I understood them. I reached the conclusion that our conflicts of social and moral views primarily originated in the difference of cultures since we belonged to different nations.