Introduction and Overview

Gratitude, Humility, Empathy, Care, and Kindness are essential elements of human interaction both within and between our cultures. Culture is largely determinative of one’s expectations of others meaning that cross-cultural interaction is fraught with opportunities to “clash” as different expectations of interaction come into conflict causing confusion and inhibiting effective collaboration.

This course provides you with a 5-part model for thinking more deeply about how you foster cross-cultural skill development in your career services practice.

Multiculturalism is a term that is used so ubiquitously that many may hesitate to define the term even though they have a deep sense of its meaning. This course will begin each lesson taking a sociological view of one aspect of culture as a companion to each component of the G.H.E.C.K. Model. I will provide curated on-line content (both videos and readings) to lay the knowledge basis for the topic before using a closing dialogue in which I will discuss and demonstrate approaches to the topic of each lesson.

So, let’s set the stage for the course before we begin the first lesson…

View the video from the organization Crash Course below that provides a useful sociological history and definition of the term culture across multiple philosophies and applications. The video is 9:32 in length.

https://youtu.be/kGrVhM_Gi8k

The focus of this course is the development of your capacities to interact with career clients in an effective cross-cultural manner while also applying these concepts in your work with clients so that they too may grow in their cross-cultural skills.

My goal for this class is to give you a different on-line course experience. One that encourages you to ask questions that have remained umasked, to think deeply about your own experiences of work, and to shift your career services practice to better incorporate ideas that are foundational to human flourishing and happiness as they relate to cross-cultural skill development.

The primary audience for this course is any career services professional (e.g., coaches, facilitators, human resource professionals, counselors, psychologists). The principles forming the foundation of this course call upon the fields of career development, sociology, positive psychology, and neuroscience research. We know so much more each and every day about how humans’ function as well as how to build our capacities to do so while thriving!

Learning Objectives

Understand how your own culture has reinforced your expectations of others via the non-material cultural artifacts of symbols, beliefs, and norms. Gratitude for your own culture is the focal point of this step in the process.
Cultural humility is a necessary attribute to develop to effective work cross-culturally.
Deepening your work with cultural empathy allows you and your clients to navigate career development and workplace processes effectively.
Effective care requires skill, particularly cross-cultural care in the workplace where one’s cultural expectations will inevitably clash with those of colleagues, clients, and workplace cultures.
Focus on kindness as an outcome of coaching and counseling, particularly kindness towards the culture of others through understanding how little our cultural social position is determined by our own choices and efforts.

This course has five major sessions (or lessons). In each you may be asked to read text or documents, view web links videos, internalize what you are learning when you write in your course journal, and answer questions about the course content on a worksheet. When you are asked to perform any of these activities, this will be listed in red.

As you move through the course, you will track your progress by answering questions on a worksheet. This worksheet will be submitted to the instructor at the end of the course to verify your earned continuing education units.

Download the worksheet here.

All parts of the course are copyright protected. You are not authorized to share any of the materials in any way.

Mark this section complete and move to the first lesson.

Introduction and Overview

Understand how your own culture has reinforced your expectations of others via the non-material cultural artifacts of symbols, beliefs, and norms. Gratitude for your own culture is the focal point of this step in the process.

Cultural humility is a necessary attribute to develop to effective work cross-culturally.

Deepening your work with cultural empathy allows you and your clients to navigate career development and workplace processes effectively.

Effective care requires skill, particularly cross-cultural care in the workplace where one’s cultural expectations will inevitably clash with those of colleagues, clients, and workplace cultures.

Focus on kindness as an outcome of coaching and counseling, particularly kindness towards the culture of others through understanding how little our cultural social position is determined by our own choices and efforts.