` Cultural Bias Research Paper Toni M. Jones
Grand Canyon University
PNC509 February 08, 2011
The term cultural bias is defined as interpreting and judging phenomena in terms particular to one's own culture. Cultural bias occurs when people of a culture make assumptions about conventions, including conventions of language, notation, proof and evidence.
Some of the most frequently encountered examples of cultural bias that emerge in multicultural counseling and development are the assumptions described in the areas of normal behavior, individualism, limits of academic disciplines, dependence on abstract words, independence, client support systems, linear thinking, change, and history. However the basis for the development of targeted group-specific interventions are the quick accumulation of evidence that shows ethnic and/or racial groups differ in terms of their cultural values, norms, expectancies, and attitudes and these differences predicate the notion that in order to be effective, community interventions need to take into consideration.
Culturally appropriate community interventions are defined, therefore, as meeting each of the following characteristics are the intervention is based on the cultural values of the group, and has the strategies that make up the intervention reflect the subjective culture of the group, and that the components that make up the strategies reflect the behavioral preferences and expectations of the group's members.
The universal approach to multicultural counseling discusses definitions of culture and multicultural counseling and examines the cultural bias of western-style counseling and current trends in field of multicultural counseling and presents common themes within "minority" groups and presents examples of trans-cultural models for multicultural counseling training which makes recommendations for counselors and educators to incorporate concepts of cultural