A Youth Leader's Guide to Building Cultural Competence [PDF]

The second step in building cultural competence is exploring your own beliefs.

We learn our own cultural ways while growing up. Often, they are so natural to us that we fail to realize that not everyone shares them. Or, we think that other people's beliefs and behaviors are wrong. These unexamined bias are major challenges to working effectively with young people who are different from yourself, particularly in HIV/AIDS prevention efforts.

Thinking about what you learned as a child and how your adult experience has shaped your beliefs is crucial. In doing so, you will begin to understand the impact of your own cultural background on your personal values and beliefs. That step will help you become aware of your own values and biases and how they may affect your perception of other cultures.

Refer to the Appendix, a list of the questions suggested in the preceding section reformulated so you can focus on your own cultural experiences. Reflect upon each question.

Try writing down your responses or discussing the questions and sharing answers with a friend or trusted colleague from a different ethnic or racial background.

Take time to focus particularly on issues raised by the questions related to health beliefs, sexuality and gender roles as those three areas are of prime importance in HIV/AIDS prevention. Have any of your beliefs and attitudes in these areas changed over the years? If they have, what experiences helped change them?

The questions in the Appendix are designed to help you build a foundation of self-awareness that can be used in examining the impact of our cultural backgrounds on our relations with others. Using these questions as well as those in the rest of this section as triggers for group discussion among other youth-serving professionals is highly recommended. While can individual can read, answer and think about these questions, the opportunity for the greatest growth and learning is probably in discussing these issues with colleagues.

Acknowledging Your Cultural Heritage ¹²

Thinking about your answers to the following set of questions will help you acknowledge your cultural heritage.

1. What ethnic group(s), socioeconomic class, religion, age group and communities do you identify with?
2. Identify two important experiences—one positive and one negative—that you have had with people from the groups you listed above.
3. Identify two important experiences—one positive and one negative—that you have had with people from outside the groups you listed above.
4. What were those experiences like? What did you learn about people who are different from you?
5. What is it about your ethnic group, socioeconomic class, religion, age, sexual orientation or community that you find embarrassing or wish you could change? Why?
6. What cultural factors in your background might contribute to being misunderstood or rejected by members of other cultures?
7. What personal qualities do you have that will help you establish personal relationships with people from other cultural groups? What personal qualities might make that difficult?

Questions to Ask Yourself About Sexual Orientation Issues

Answering these questions about sexual orientation will help you begin to identify issues needing additional learning and work on your part.

1. What messages did you receive about lesbian, gay and bisexual people when you were growing up? From family? From religion? From friends? From the media? What opinions did you form?
2. Have experiences in your adult life changed some of your opinions? If yes, which ones? How?
3. Are you knowledgeable about: How many people are gay, lesbian, or bisexual? Research on homosexuality? The history of the gay liberation movement in the U.S.?
4. Do you know any gay, lesbian or bisexual people who are open about their sexual orientation? Have they ever discussed their lives with you? If not, why do you think they haven't?
5. If you think that someone might be gay, lesbian or bisexual, do you try to signal to them that you are accepting? Why or why not? How?
6. Have you ever read a book or seen a movie with a gay theme? Been to a gay bookstore or bar? Read a gay newspaper or magazine? Seen a gay show on cable television? Seen an openly gay or lesbian musician or comedian perform?
7. How would you feel if a family member told you she or he was lesbian, gay or bisexual? Would you respond differently if it were your child? Cousin? Parent?
8. How would you feel if a colleague at work told you he or she was gay or lesbian?

An ever-present issue for lesbian, gay and bisexual people is whether or not it is safe to tell people the truth about their lives. If you are gay, lesbian or bisexual, you may wonder whether or not to "come out" to a non-gay youth group by being open about your sexual orientation.

Questions to Consider Before Coming Out to a Group: __________

• Have you already established mutual trust and respect with the group?
• What purpose would coming out it serve? Would it help you, the group or both?
• What will be the effect on the group?
• Is there another leader who can help the group process the information?
• What sources of emotional support could you turn to?
• Do you risk losing your job?

Checking Out Your Biases ¹³

This set of questions, if answered honestly, will help you begin to see where your biases are in working with young people. There can be a link between the treatment of and opinions about a few individuals and a more general attitude or bias.

1. List five young people you most like and feel comfortable with and five with whom the reverse is true.
   1. Do these teens have anything in common with each other? Think of language, behavior, gender, cleanliness, manners, culture, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity.
   2. Can you identify a bias that is indicated by their similarities?
2. How is your room arranged? Where do group members generally sit? Does the arrangement of the room result in the better-behaved or brighter teens being closer to you? Which young people, if any, are always in the back of the room? Why do you think this is so?
3. Do some young people, or groups of young people, take up more of your time than others? Which ones and why? How do you feel about spending more time with one group than another?
4. Do you tend to expect less from certain members of your group? Are these young people more likely to be poor or of one racial or ethnic group?
5. Do you tend to praise certain young people more than others? Do these students tend to be of one gender or sexual orientation or from any particular economic, ethnic or racial group?
6. Do certain teens show signs of withdrawal, self-deprecation or aggression towards you or others? Is this behavior more common to members of one group?

Answering all the questions in this section, discussing them honestly with others or writing down your responses, are good ways to focus on your own cultural background and biases. The process, of course, should be ongoing. Refer back to these questions on a regular basis and see what new insights you have. The paths to self-awareness are many; this resource is just one tool.