Present day educational and psycho-social services deal with broad cultural diversity. Educators and psycho-social professionals need to become culturally competent to be able to work with people from different cultural backgrounds including race, ethnicity, culture, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, etc. To be able to do so, it is important to cultivate cultural competence among these workers, the perquisites to which are the awareness and acceptance of differences between people as well as reflection upon their own attitudes and feelings. To create a profound and long-lasting effect of the training, creative and experiential teaching methods are often applied. This paper describes the use of children’s books in academic training for cultural and context awareness and presents two training modules. The application of this methodology is demonstrated with university students in social work and with students in an Arabic-speaking teachers’ college in Israel.
Askeland, G. A., & Dohlie, E. (2015). Contextualizing International Social Work: Religion as Relevant Factor. International Social Work, 58, 261-269. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020872813482958
Braden, E. G. (2019). Do You Have Papers? Latinx Third Graders Analyze Immigration Policy through Critical Multicultural Literature. Children’s Literature in Education, 50, 464-480. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-018-9359-5
Bussema, E., & Nemec, P, (2006). Training to Increase Cultural Competence. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 30, 71-73. https://doi.org/10.2975/30.2006.71.73
Central Bureau of Statistics (2020). Statistical Abstracts of Israel.
Dei, G. J. S., James, I., Marcia, K., Leeno, L., James-Wilson, S., & Zine, J. (2000). Removing the Margins: The Challenges and Possibilities of Inclusive Schooling. Canadian Scholars’ Press.
Garland, S. (2015). Azzi in Between. Frances Lincoln Children’s Books.
Hayik, R. (2012). Using Children’s Literature on Gender, Religious Diversity, and Minority Issues as a Springboard for Critical Reader Responses in an Israeli-Arab EFL Classroom. Ph.D. Thesis, Indiana University.
Hayik, R. (2015). Addressing Religious Diversity through Children’s Literature: An “English as a Foreign Language” Classroom in Israel. International Journal of Intercultural Education, 17, 92-106. https://doi.org/10.18251/ijme.v17i2.911
Hayik, R. (2018). Through Their Eyes: Israeli-Arab Students Speak Up through Participatory Documentary Photography Projects. Language Teaching Research Journal, 22, 458-477. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168816683558
Hayik, R. (2019). Voices Countering Whiteness in the Israeli Arab Classroom. Whiteness and Education, 4, 18-37. https://doi.org/10.1080/23793406.2019.1569476
Jernigan, V. B., Hearod, J. B., Tran, K., Norris, K. C., & Buchwald, D. (2016). An Examination of Cultural Competence Training in US Medical Education Guided by the Tool for Assessing Cultural Competence Training. Journal of Health Disparities Research & Practice, 9, 150-167.
Kohli, H. K., Huber, R., & Faul, A. C. (2010). Historical and Theoretical Development of Culturally Competent Social Work Practice. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 30, 252-271. https://doi.org/10.1080/08841233.2010.499091
Landa, M. S., & Stephens, G. (2017). Promoting Cultural Competence in Preservice Teacher Education through Children’s Literature: An Exemplary Case Study. Issues in Children Education, 26, 53-71
Layfield, A. (2021). Effects of Multicultural Education on Small Presses and Commercial Publishing: A Case Study of the House on Mango Street. Children’s Literature in Education, 52, 217-230. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-020-09407-8
Lee, W., Souto-Martins, M., George, R. B., & Fernandez, A. (2023). Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Obstetric Anesthesia: A Scoping Review. Canadian Journal of Anesthesia, 70, 1035-1046. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12630-023-02460-z
Lijtmaer, R. (2001). Countertransference and Ethnicity: The Analyst’s Psychic Changes. Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 29, 73-83. https://doi.org/10.1521/jaap.29.1.73.17194
Masalha, N. (2005). The Nakba—Oral History and Collective Memory. In N. Masalha (Ed.), Catastrophe Remembered: Palestine, Israel, and the Internal Refugees: Essays in Memory of Edward Said. Zed Books.
Masalha, N. (2012). The Palestine Nakba: Decolonizing History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory. Zed books.
Meacham, S., & Meacham, S. (2016). Pre-Service Teachers’ Cultural Competence Development Using Multicultural Children’s Literature. In J. Kitchen, D. Tidwell, & Fitzgerald (Eds.), Self-Study and Diversity II. Professional Learning (pp. 193-206). SensePublishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6300-534-0_12
Mendoza, C. (2019). Border Stories: The Immigration Journey, Social and Academic Belonging and Parental Detainment in Children’s Picture Books from 1998 to 2018. Ph.D. Thesis, University of North Carolina.
Ministry of Justice (2016). The Task Force for the Eradication of Racism towards Ethiopian Immigrants. Final Report. (In Hebrew)
Mirsky, J. (2008). The Use of Narrative Analysis and Psychoanalytic Exploration of Group Processes in Multicultural Training. Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 5, 2-15. https://doi.org/10.1002/aps.161
Mirsky, J. (2011). Working through Counter-Transferencial Blocks in Cultural Competence Training. Psychoanalytic Social Work, 18, 136-148. https://doi.org/10.1080/15228878.2011.611788
Monoyiou, E., & Symeonidou, S. (2016). The Wonderful World of Children’s Books? Negotiating Diversity through Children’s Literature. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 20, 588-603. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2015.1102338
Murakami, E., Gurr, D., & Notman, R. (2019). Educational Leadership, Culture, Success in High Need Schools. Information Age Publishing.
NASW National Association of Social Workers (2001). NASW Standards for Cultural Competence in Social Work Practice. NASW Press.
NASW, National Association of Social Workers (2021). Read the Code of Ethics. https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English
Ochs, E, & Capps, L. (1996). Narrating the Self. Annual Review of Anthropology, 25, 19-43. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.25.1.19
Ortega-Reig, M., Schürmann, C., Feradis-Martinez, A., & Copus, A. (2023). Measuring Access t Services of General Interest as a Diagnostic Tool to Identify Well-Being Disparities between Rural Areas in Europe. Land, 12, Article 1049. https://doi.org/10.3390/land12051049
Pardeck, J. T., & Pardeck, J. A. (1998). An Exploration of the Uses of Children’s Books as an Approach for Enhancing Cultural Diversity. Early Child Development and Care, 147, 25-31. https://doi.org/10.1080/0300443981470104
Pedersen, M. J., Stritch, J. M., & Thuesen, F. (2018). Punishment on the Frontlines of Public Service Delivery: Client Ethnicity and Caseworker Sanctioning Decisions in a Scandinavian Welfare State. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 28, 339-354. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muy018
Ruurs, M. (2016). Steppingstones: A Refugee Family’s Journey. Orca Book Publishers.
Schejter, A. M., & Tirosh, N. (2016). iNakba and Realizing the Potential of New Media. In A Justice-Based Approach for New Media Policy (pp. 101-115). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41510-9_8
Sciurba, K., Hernandez, S. J., & Barton, R. (2021). Humanizing the Journey across the Mexico-U.S. Border: Multimodal Analysis of Children’s Picture Books and the Restorying of Latinx (Im)migration. Children’s Literature in Education, 52, 411-429. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-020-09420-x
Sela, A., & Kadish, A. (2016). Israeli and Palestinian Memories and Historical Narratives of the 1948 War—An Overview. Israel Studies, 21, 1-25. https://doi.org/10.2979/israelstudies.21.1.1
Shenhav, I., & Yona, Y. (2008). Racism in Israel. Van Leer Institute. (In Hebrew)
Shmuel, A. N. (2023). Children’s Wellbeing in Immigrant Families Ethiopian Jews in Israel. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31917-4
Shmuel, N. (1991). Brown Daniel. Masada. (Now Modan, Aba Hum in Hebrew)
Shmuel, N. (2012). What Is My Name and Who Am I? Pijama Library. (In Hebrew)
Shmuel, N. (2020). Generations of Hope: Traditions and Intergenerational Transmission amongst Jewish Ethiopian Families in Israel. Pardes Publishing House. (In Hebrew)
Sorek, T. (2015). Palestinian Commemoration in Israel—Calendars, Monuments, and Martyrs. Stanford University Press.
Sue, D. W. (2001). Multidimensional Facets of Cultural competence. The Counseling Psychologist, 29, 790-781. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000001296002
Todres, J. (2018). The Trump Effect, Children, and the Value of Human Rights Education. Family Court Review, 56, 331-43. https://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12350
Williams, C. (2005). Training for Cultural Competence. Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 14, 111-143. https://doi.org/10.1300/J051v14n01_06
Winnicott, D. (1953). Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 34, 89-97.
Winnicott, D. (1958). Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena. In Collected Papers: Through Pediatrics to Psychoanalysis (pp. 229-242). Tavistock.
Winnicott, D. (1971a). Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena. In Playing and Reality (pp. 1-30). Tavistock.
Winnicott, D. (1971b). Playing: A Theoretical Statement. In Playing and Reality (pp. 38-52). Tavistock.
Wright, K. C., Carr, K. A., & Akin, B. (2021). The Whitewashing of Social Work History: How Dismantling Racism in Social Work Education Begins With an Equitable History of the Profession. Advances in Social Work, 21, 274-297. https://doi.org/10.18060/23946