Can Cultural Competence Be Taught? Evaluating the Impact of the Soap Model

This article discusses the Self and Other Awareness Project (SOAP) cultural competence development model and presents the results of a study that evaluated its impact on the racial attitudes of 110 undergraduate students enrolled in an undergraduate interdisciplinary Minority Groups course at a mid-sized public university in the Southeastern United States. Findings indicate that students experienced a statistically significant change in racial attitudes (measured by the Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale (Neville, Lilly, Duran, Lee, & Browne, 2000) from the beginning to the end of the course. Further analysis revealed that social work majors (n=30) were significantly more aware of racial privilege and blatant racial issues at the end of the course than they were at the beginning of the course.