Anne Leseth

There is a growing body of research on cultural diversity, discrimination and racism in physical education teaching and practice. However, although ‘cultural diversity’ is a central concern in research, curriculum and policies of higher education, it is not clear how and in what ways students and teachers should consider cultural diversity. Drawing on qualitative interviews with teachers and students in a Norwegian physical education teacher education (PETE) programme, we investigate how and in what ways students and teachers regard cultural diversity in that context. We suggest that cultural diversity is not sufficiently understood when it is assumed that knowledge about particular positions or identity categories (white, black, minority, majority) is fixed. Our findings indicate that cultural diversity is visible in movement and in bodily resonance between people. These findings present a strong argument for recognition of the relational, embodied and social aspect of cultural diversity in PE.

Summary: What is culturally informed psychiatry? What does it mean, and why is it important? These questions are discussed with a focus on the cultural aspects of the clinical encounter. The DSM-5 Outline for Cultural Formulation was developed as a method of assessing the cultural factors affecting the clinical encounter. It calls for the assessment of the cultural features of the relationship between the patient and the clinician; however, there is a lack of debate about what this means in practice. Clinicians run the risk of withdrawal rather than cultural understanding when facing patients with different cultural backgrounds. Using ethnographic material from anthropological fieldwork, I suggest that the encounter with cultural differences could be a useful point of departure for the clinician to develop cultural understanding. It is argued that recognising the experiences of differences is crucial in strengthening transcultural communication and preventing misdiagnosis in the clinician–patient encounter.