Bette R. Bonder, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, Professor of Health Sciences and Psychology at Cleveland State University, is an occupational therapist and psychologist with experience working with individuals from diverse backgrounds in mental health, gerontology, and developmental disabilities. She is currently serving as Special Assistant to the Dean of the College of Sciences and Health Professions for the NEOMED-CSU Partnership, a project that is directly applying some of the lessons found in this book. Laura Martin, PhD, is Emerita Professor at Cleveland State University where she held multiple faculty appointments and served as Associate Dean, Anthropology Department Chair, and Director of a long-running public education program on Mayan culture. Trained as an anthropological linguist, she has taught and done research across several disciplines and has engaged in collaborative projects on topics ranging from anthropology and conservation biology to art history and migrant education. She held a Fulbright Fellowship in 2004 and has conducted workshops for teachers, health professionals, and researchers in the United States, Guatemala, and Mexico. She is currently a docent at the Cleveland Museum of Art, involved in a series of ongoing projects that combine art and medicine, and exhibits as a book artist.
“The strongest part of the book is the development of skills and abilities of the ethnographic mindset: curiosity, imagination, empathy, etc., considering where one is positioned both physically and metaphorically in the encounter with other human beings, then having the capacity to take the ethnographic mindset into approaching assessment, client-centered goal setting, and intervention...Bonder and Martin’s book does an exemplary job of positioning the discussion of cultural competence outside a framework of a dominant culture that recognizes other cultures.” - Carla Wilhite, OTD/L, OTR/L, University of New Mexico, Doody’s Review Service “The authors’ desire for maximum engagement between the reader and the text is clear from the most cursory glance at the book. Each chapter begins with a clear list of learner objectives, while the numerous reflective questions provoke an enquiring reader to pause, reflect, be curious, and thus discover the nuances of their own cultural beliefs. The ancillary material accessible on the internet and the availability of an instructor’s manual make the book an appropriate resource for students and workshop participants; however, due to the interactive design, it would also be a valuable resource for any occupational therapy practitioner engaged in personal reflective practice.” - Catherine Beynon-Pindar, Senior Occupational Therapist, The Retreat, York, British Journal of Occupational Therapy