An Exploratory Study of Cultural Competence: Examining Cross Cultural Adaptability in Peace Officers
ABSTRACTCentral to the issue of cultural competence, law enforcement administrators and sworn peace officers are assigned the task of protecting and serving members of diverse communities. In short, from a global perspective policing requires that peace officers are routinely involved in both social and human relations tasks. Furthermore, as core components of policing it is in those tasks that being able to adapt cross culturally (dimensions of being culturally competent) become clear and significant, particularly with demographic shifts showing increases in racial, ethnic, and cultural compositions (Passel and Cohn, 2008; United States Census Bureau, 2010). To that end Bennet (1995) posited, “As with other kinds of social change, law enforcement agencies must adapt to the population shifts” (p.1). This exploratory study uses the 4 scales of the Cross Cultural Adaptability Inventory (CCAI) to examine, describe, and compare patterns of adaptability, a key attribute of cultural competence. The Defense Science Board (2011) defined adaptability as, “the ability and willingness to anticipate the need for change, to prepare for that change, and to implement changes in a timely and effective manner in response to the surrounding environment” (p. 1). This research study was designed to explore sworn peace officers’ adaptability. Studying adaptability provides a means to investigate the self-perceived cultural competencies among sworn peace officers while investigating to what extent the demographic factors of (1) race/ethnicity, (2) gender, (3) age, (4) education, and (5) professional experience affect these competencies among sworn peace officers employed by law enforcement agencies in the Midwest Region of the State of Ohio.
Public Administration, Public Policy, Adult Education, Adaptability, Adult Learning Theory, Cultural Competence, Cultural Diversity, Education, Ethics, Training, Law Enforcement, Police Culture, Sworn Peace Officer
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