Cultural Intelligence and Cultural Responsiveness

 Cultural intelligence refers to “the ability to understand how we feel, think, and act when engaging across cultural settings, in multicultural situations, and with people of diverse ethnicities, gender, ages, abilities, and backgrounds.” Going back to the seminar, I stopped to think and compared my daily life to the people I interact with every day and how high their cultural intelligence is. 


After doing some thinking, I realized that I have met a lot of individuals that lack cultural intelligence and therefore, responsiveness. Even though they might have not been aware of this value, the lack of curiosity is also obvious. Moreover, I believe that everyone at some point in their lives has experienced curiosity to know or learn more about other cultures, either because you know someone outside of your culture or just out of curiosity. Even myself. I have failed to apply cultural awareness in my life before and later on, I realized that if I had been more curious, I would have benefited from it by improving my cultural intelligence. 


A crucial strategy that Dr. Renee Bhatti-Klug talks about the benefits of curiosity. Having an open mind, being willing to listen, allowing space for creativity and increasing communication skills are only a few of the benefits that also increase your cultural intelligence and responsiveness. By actively participating in these, one can learn how to be a leader.


With this being said, cultural diversity is very important, and it is everywhere you go! Therefore, that includes where us; STEM students will go. In every branch of STEM, you will encounter yourself at least once working in a team, with people from different backgrounds. Having cultural awareness and intelligence can increase the productivity of the whole team and positively affect your relationships with colleagues. Knowing how to avoid conflict, communicate, and being able to listen are only a few examples of cultural responsiveness that one can do.


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