ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the notion of "cultural competence", partly to clarify its significance and partly to evaluate its usefulness as a concept that can cast light on sociological aspects of death, grief, and bereavement. In a sense, cultural competence is the modern equivalent of ethnically sensitive practice. In a context of cultural diversity there will be many cultural issues that could have a significant bearing on the situation, how it is perceived, how it is managed and the impact it has on the various people involved. Some of these will include wider structural factors, such as racism, and will therefore be relevant to professional and political struggle to counter this and other forms of discrimination. What evolved from the civil rights movement was a professional commitment to anti-racism, a recognition that members of the human services needed to include within their value base a commitment to racial equality.
