A Critical Review of the Literature on Cultural Competency in Student Affairs: Toward Transformative Cultural Responsiveness

Student affairs professionals must strive to address the needs of an increasingly diverse student population. As such, this review critically examines scholarly research over the last 25 years regarding the concept of cultural competence as it pertains to students, student affairs professionals, and faculty members. This review also develops a critique of the concept of cultural competence and proposes to suspend and replace terms such as "cultural competence" and "multicultural competence" with what we refer to as "transformative cultural responsiveness" (TCR). TCR, as an alternative, centers intersectionality in its conceptualization, and locates students' experiences within a systems analysis of oppression. The article concludes with a discussion of the critical gaps in existing research and the questions that warrant further study.