Abstract
This article presents an analysis of the lived experiences of youth mental health practitioners taking part in Transcultural Interinstitutional and Interdisciplinary Case Discussion Seminars (TIICDS), an intercultural training initiative developed in Montréal (Québec, Canada), while considering the current context of increasing social polarizations. Using insights from the community of practice (CoP) framework and drawing on the analysis of 21 seminar sessions and 26 semi-structured individual interviews, this article examines the relation between the local sociopolitical context, the participants’ verbalization about their identities, and the affect and cognition evoked by the training. Results indicate that TIICDSs present several features of a CoP and that intercultural training needs to build on both theoretical and experiential knowledge, while considering local contextual elements. These include historical and contemporary social representations and power differentials between groups, the cultural identities of trainees, and the institutions and sociopolitical structures in which clinical practices take place. These elements, we argue, are sensitive and potentially conflictual but can be addressed through supportive and reflexive group-based initiatives such as CoPs that bring together practitioners on a regular basis and provide them with a ‘culturally safe enough’ space in which they can learn to complexify their understanding of clinical situations.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
ADC Research Institute, and Hussein Ibish (2003). Report on hate crimes and discrimination against Arab Americans: The post-September 11 backlash. Washington, DC: American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
Bennett, Milton J. (1986). A developmental approach to training for intercultural sensitivity. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 10(2), 179-196.
Bennett, Milton J. (1993). Towards ethnorelativism: A developmental model of intercultural sensitivity. Education for the intercultural experience, 2, 21-71.
Bohner, Gerd, and Nina Dickel (2011). Attitudes and attitude change. Annual review of psychology, 62, 391-417.
Brubaker, Rogers, and Frederick Cooper (2000). Beyond” identity”. Theory and society, 29(1), 1-47.
Cair-Can. (2002). Life for Canadian Muslims the morning after: A 9/11 wake-up call. Ottawa, Ontario: Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Chao, Ruth Chu-Lien, Meifen Wei, Glenn E. Good, and Lisa Y. Flores (2011). Race/ethnicity, color-blind racial attitudes, and multicultural counseling competence: the moderating effects of multicultural counseling training. Journal of counseling psychology, 58(1), 72.
Daxhelet, Marie-Laure, Janique Johnson-Lafleur, Garine Papazian-Zohrabian, and Cécile Rousseau (2018). Impuissance et contre-transfert culturel. L’Autre, 19(1), 21-31.
Farnsworth, Valerie, Irene Kleanthous, and Etienne Wenger-Trayner (2016). Communities of practice as a social theory of learning: A conversation with Etienne Wenger. British Journal of Educational Studies, 64(2), 139-160.
Gouvernement du Québec 2012 Fiche synthèse sur l’immigration et la diversité ethnoculturelle au Québec. Retrieved from http://www.micc.gouv.qc.ca/publications/fr/recherches-statistiques/FICHE_syn_an2011.pdf.
Grim, Brian J. (2012). Religion, law and social conflict in the 21st century: Findings from sociological research. Oxford Journal of law and religion, 1(1), 249-271.
Hall, Stuart (1992). The question of cultural identity. In Stuart Hall, David Held, and Anthony G. McGrew (Eds.), Modernity and its futures (pp. 274–316). Cambridge: Polity Press in association with the Open University.
Hall, Stuart (2011). “Introduction: Who Needs ‘Identity’?” In Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay (Eds.), Questions of Cultural Identity. London: SAGE Publications Ltd
Hassan, Ghayda, Abdelwahed Mekki-Berrada, Cécile Rousseau, Gabrielle Lyonnais-Lafond, Uzma Jamil, and Janet Cleveland (2019). Impact of the Charter of Quebec Values on psychological well-being of francophone university students. Transcultural psychiatry, 56(6), 1139-1154.
Heath, Anthony, Eldad Davidov, Robert Ford, Eva GT Green, Alice Ramos, and Peter Schmidt (2020). Contested terrain: Explaining divergent patterns of public opinion towards immigration within Europe. Milton Park: Taylor and Francis.
Johnson-Lafleur, Janique, Garine Papazian-Zohrabian, and Cécile Rousseau (2019). Learning from partnership tensions in transcultural interdisciplinary case discussion seminars: A qualitative study of collaborative youth mental health care informed by game theory. Social Science and Medicine, 237, 112443.
Johnson-Lafleur, Janique, Cécile Rousseau, Garine Papazian-Zohrabian, Collette Boulanger, Hayette Boubnan, Anne Lynch, and Anne-Marie Richard (2016). L’espace québécois du vivre-ensemble mis à l’épreuve par le débat sur la Charte des valeurs: Expériences et perceptions d’intervenants du domaine de la santé et des services sociaux œuvrant en contexte de pluriethnicité. Nouvelles pratiques sociales, 28(1), 175-194.
Kirmayer, Laurence J, Cécile Rousseau, and Jaswant Guzder 2014 Introduction: the place of culture in mental health services. In Cultural Consultation (pp. 1–20): Springer.
Kirmayer, Laurence J., Cécile Rousseau, Jaswant Guzder, and G. Eric Jarvis (2008). Training clinicians in cultural psychiatry: a Canadian perspective. Academic Psychiatry, 32(4), 313-319.
Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lussier M.-H., Tu M. T. et Blaser C. 2019 À l’intersection des définitions de langues : Portrait des communautés linguistiques au Québec et dans les réseaux territoriaux de services en 2016. Institut national de santé publique du Québec, 32 p.
Metzl, Jonathan M., and Helena Hansen (2014). Structural competency: Theorizing a new medical engagement with stigma and inequality. Social Science and Medicine, 103, 126-133.
Ozer, Simon (2020). Globalization and radicalization: A cross-national study of local embeddedness and reactions to cultural globalization in regard to violent extremism. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 76, 26-36.
Potvin, Maryse (2000). Some racist slips about Quebec in English Canada between 1995 and 1998 (1). Canadian Ethnic Studies Journal, 32(2), 1-28.
Potvin, Maryse (2010). Interethnic relations and racism in Quebec. Quebec Questions: Quebec Studies for the Twenty-First Century, 267-286.
Potvin, Maryse (2017). Discours racistes et propagande haineuse. Trois groupes populistes identitaires au Québec. Diversité urbaine, 17, 49-72.
Pouliot, Sophie, Yolande Pelchat, and Susie Gagnon (2015). La formation interculturelle dans le réseau québécois de la santé et des services sociaux: constats et pistes d’action. Institut national de santé publique du Québec: Gouvernement du Québec.
Ragazzi, Francesco (2016). Suspect community or suspect category? The impact of counter-terrorism as ‘policed multiculturalism’. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 42(5), 724-741.
Rousseau, Cécile, Jill Hanley, Geneviève Audet, Janet Cleveland, Ghayda Hassan, Janique Johnson-Lafleur, Abdelwahed Mekki-Berrada, Victorine Michalon-Brodeur, and Maryse Potvin 2019 Analyse des risques et bénéfices en termes de santé publique de la future loi 21 sur la laïcité de l’État. Retrieved from Montréal: http://sherpa-recherche.com/wp-content/uploads/Avis-complet-projet-21-2019.pdf
Rousseau, Cécile, Ghayda Hassan, Nicolas Moreau, and Brett D. Thombs (2011). Perceived discrimination and its association with psychological distress among newly arrived immigrants before and after September 11, 2001. American journal of public health, 101(5), 909-915.
Rousseau, Cécile, Janique Johnson-Lafleur, Garine Papazian-Zohrabian, and Toby Measham (2018). Interdisciplinary case discussions as a training modality to teach cultural formulation in child mental health. Transcultural psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363461518794033
Wenger, Etienne (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. New York: Cambridge university press.
Wenger, Etienne, Richard Arnold McDermott, and William Snyder (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Brighton: Harvard Business Press.
Funding
This research was supported by Grants from the Fonds de recherche du Québec en santé (FRQS) (Grant No. # 198690).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.
Ethical Approval
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Johnson-Lafleur, J., Nadeau, L. & Rousseau, C. Intercultural Training in Tense Times: Cultural Identities and Lived Experiences Within a Community of Practice of Youth Mental Health Care in Montréal. Cult Med Psychiatry 46, 391–413 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-021-09720-x
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-021-09720-x