critical consciousness multicultural education

Beyond cultural competence: critical consciousness, social justice, and multicultural education

Affiliation.

• 1 Family Centered Experience Program and Longitudinal Case Studies, Office of Medical Education, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-5726, USA. [email protected]
• PMID: 19474560
• DOI: 10.1097/ACM.0b013e3181a42398

In response to the Liaison Committee on Medical Education mandate that medical education must address both the needs of an increasingly diverse society and disparities in health care, medical schools have implemented a wide variety of programs in cultural competency. The authors critically analyze the concept of cultural competency and propose that multicultural education must go beyond the traditional notions of "competency" (i.e., knowledge, skills, and attitudes). It must involve the fostering of a critical awareness--a critical consciousness--of the self, others, and the world and a commitment to addressing issues of societal relevance in health care. They describe critical consciousness and posit that it is different from, albeit complementary to, critical thinking, and suggest that both are essential in the training of physicians. The authors also propose that the object of knowledge involved in critical consciousness and in learning about areas of medicine with social relevance--multicultural education, professionalism, medical ethics, etc.--is fundamentally different from that acquired in the biomedical sciences. They discuss how aspects of multicultural education are addressed at the University of Michigan Medical School. Central to the fostering of critical consciousness are engaging dialogue in a safe environment, a change in the traditional relationship between teachers and students, faculty development, and critical assessment of individual development and programmatic goals. Such an orientation will lead to the training of physicians equally skilled in the biomedical aspects of medicine and in the role medicine plays in ensuring social justice and meeting human needs.

Publication types

• Clinical Competence*
• Cultural Competency*
• Cultural Diversity*
• Education, Medical, Undergraduate / organization & administration*
• Forecasting
• Program Development
• Program Evaluation
• Quality of Health Care
• Schools, Medical / organization & administration*
• Social Justice
• United States

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Beyond cultural competence: critical consciousness, social justice, and multicultural education

2009, Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges

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Theoretical Foundation of Critical Literacies and Global and Multicultural Education

• First Online: 11 December 2015

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• Bogum Yoon 2  

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In this chapter, I invite the reader to a more in-depth discussion on critical literacies from global and multicultural perspectives by presenting important theoretical constructs of each field. I first provide a historical and theoretical review of global and multicultural education, followed by the literature review of critical literacies, including relevant definitions. Overall, this chapter serves as the literature review of the three areas. Through this review, I attempt to answer the question on why global and multicultural perspectives matter in the field of critical literacies.

The original version of this chapter is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-943-1_11

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Yoon, B. (2016). Theoretical Foundation of Critical Literacies and Global and Multicultural Education. In: Critical Literacies. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-943-1_3

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