Good afternoon!
Good afternoon everyone. Today I would like to see the article "Culture, Recognition, and the Negotiation of Difference: Some Thoughts on Cultural Competency in Planning Education" by Julian Agyeman and Jennifer Sien Erickson.
When I see this title, I thought planning education would be super complicated, it might be but it might not.
Let's see it!
In the introduction, this article talked about the definition of social justice. Do you have any idea about social justice? For me, it is having equal access and opportunity to any public community, buildings, system, work, and education. In this paper, the authors mentioned "Social justice by working to expand choice and opportunity for all persons, recognizing responsibility to cope with disadvantage, and promote racial and economic integration." This doesn't sound like for all people, right?
This article argues planning schools is not only unique to future generations but reimagines and embodies cultural competencies.
There are some discussions about faculty of color. From this kind of example, the authors said planners must recognize cultural awareness, beliefs, knowledge, skills, behaviors, and professional practice at planning meetings.
Then, what are planning meetings for??
Please see the title. These meetings are for planning education!!
So, planners have to come up with creative, productive ways with the understanding to diversity and cultural heterogeneity.
In the introduction, I could find the most important author's opinion. It is,
"Cultural competency should become an essential part of the professional planner's praxis."
This clearly implies the authors don't think cultural competency is not centered at least the time they published this paper.
In the paper, the authors preferred the term difference to diversity because there are issues of race and gender.
It is really difficult to involve marginal groups directly in the planning process because of the extent of cultural and group marginalization and also the lack of privilege and power in society.
In conclusion, politicians, planners, and planning educators have to prioritize cultural competency with differences (agenda of planning and design).
However, there is a problem. In the paper, the authors asked how we can see diversity as less cost, a drag for scarce resources and mind-numbing complexity see it as an opportunity. Also, how can we move from multiculturalism(cross-cultural overlap, interaction, and negotiation) to interculturalism("diversity with ethnocultural and other kinds"). Maybe dialogue is necessary but the result is not sure. It might stress cultural differences or the gradual erosion of cultural differences.
I noted "cultural competency" in the most important states. In a later page, author mentioned it with systematic elements as developmental process .
(1) valuing diversity
(2) capacity of cultural self-assessment
(3)consciousness of cultural interaction
(4) institutionalization of cultural knowledge
(5) development of service with understanding of inter- intreaculturally
In conclusion, politicians, planners, and planning educators have to priopritize cultural competency with difference (agenda of planning and design).
My opinion
This is my first time to read this article and was surprised actually. The point was super clear. Keywords were "cultural competency", "multiculturalism", and "interculturalism." The authors wanted to make planning education with cultural competency with a mix of multiculturalism and interculturalism.
However, it only said politicians, planners, and planning educators need to understand about cultural competency with new "interculturalism." This means they have to think about ethnocultural gender and all other elements by recognizing differences.
I recently had a chance to learn about equality. This paper recalled the part. It talked about life, income, food, health and so on. However I think education should be also one required equality. However, each county has their own way to achieve equality, and difficult to integrate definition to one thing. I really hope this paper would support more progress in the future.
This requires super deep understanding about awareness, beliefs, knowledge, skills, behaviors, and professional practice.
I really wanted example or any suggest how we can improve programs and understandings.
I totally agree that people such as politicians, planners, and planning educators need to understand everyone's need. But I'm not sure how we can utilize this suggestion.
Thank you for reading!
Reference
Agyeman, J., & Erickson, J. S. (2012). Culture, Recognition, and the Negotiation of Difference: Some Thoughts on Cultural Competency in Planning Education. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 32(3), 358-366. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X12441213