Feature Approaches to Biology Teaching and Learning Cultural Competence in the College Biology Classroom

As a general phrase, “cultural competence” can often conjure for the unfamiliar reader a vision of a person who is fair, just, and open, a person who is nice, someone who is a good person at heart. Cultural competence, however, goes far beyond the everyday meanings that its component words invoke, and it is an active area of scholarship and professional development, especially in the training of K–12 education and health care professionals (Diller and Moule, 2005; Klump and Nelson, 2005; National Center for Cultural Competence [NCCC], 2007). In fact, one would be hard pressed to find a medical, pharmacy, or nursing school or a precollege teacher preparation program that does not devote significant curricular time to developing cultural competence among their trainees. Yet, the term cultural competence is rarely found within the vocabulary of most practicing biologists and university-level biology teachers, and its relevance to biology may seem questionable. However, given the limited progress that has been made in diversifying the sciences as a discipline, the time has come for us to consider the implications and importance of cultural competence within the biological sciences, especially in the context of our teaching in classrooms and laboratories. So, what is cultural competence? Why should biologists care about it? What are common pitfalls that reveal our lack of cultural competence? And what are some teaching strategies that we can all use to continue to increase our cultural competence? Here, we attempt to address these questions and to connect readers in the biological sciences with insights from other disciplines that may aid them in striving for cultural competence in their own college or university classrooms and laboratories.