title: Occupation, well-being, and culture: Theory and cultural humility.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Canadian Model of Occupational Performance and Engagement depicts individuals embedded within cultural environments that afford occupational possibilities. Culture pertains not solely to ethnicity or race but to any dimension of diversity, including class, gender, sexual orientation, and ability.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This paper highlights specific dimensions of cultural diversity and their relationships to occupational engagement and well-being.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Cultural variations constitute the basis for a socially constructed hierarchy of traits that significantly determine occupational opportunities and impact mental health and well-being. Cultural humility is an approach to redressing power imbalances in client-therapist relationships by incorporating critical self-evaluation and recognizing that cultural differences lie not within clients but within client-therapist relationships.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  It is proposed that theoretical relevance would be enhanced if culturally diverse perspectives were incorporated into theories of occupation. Cultural humility is advocated as an approach to theoretical development and in efforts to counter professional Eurocentrism, ethnocentrism, and intellectual colonialism.
authors.affiliation: Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada. ik.hammell@sasktel.net
authors.forename: Karen R Whalley
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Hammell
mesh_terms: D054521:Cultural Competency; D018864:Cultural Diversity; D003469:Culture; D006233:Persons with Disabilities / Q000534:rehabilitation; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008603:Mental Health / Q000208:ethnology*; D009788:Occupational Therapy / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000523:psychology; D044469:Racial Groups; D019529:Sexuality / Q000208:ethnology; D012923:Social Class