How Would You Define Cultural Awareness? - Australian culture in particular  

Do you understand what it means to be culturally aware? Or better yet, are you culturally competent?

Cultural awareness is considered to be a persons ability to separate themselves from their own cultural beliefs and habits, and be aware of how their activities, social values, family values, etc, all fall together to be part of what a person identifies themselves as being, be it an Aussie bogan, catholic, buddist, athiest, etc.

What I've always found to be much more interesting is a persons cultural competence, which relates to ones ability to understand, adapt, and be capable of communicating and integrating with persons of very different cultures. This is a particularly unique and difficult skill to acquire, as you not only need the ability to modify your own behaviors, but also need to be aware and have an understanding, with a mutual respect, for another persons beliefs and mannerisms so as to not offend and communicate effectively.

In the current climate with conflict amongst many cultures, Australian's need to remember that they live in the most multicultural country in the world (fact), and although some people might feel that being "Australian" is being a white bogan, that happens to be far from the truth.



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