Multicultural Competence Quick Guide

Multicultural Competence Quick Guide

Theoretical Practice
Student Affairs professionals need to be knowledgeable about theories of college student development as well as how those theories can be incorporated into various elements of their daily work. (e.g. program design and implementation, research design and implementation, assessment and evaluation, interpersonal communication etc.)
Students who serve as student leaders should be aware of the various student development theories in order to better understand their own personal growth and development as well as understand how to implement theory to practice into their programmatic and community service efforts through their student organizations

Breaking Down Multicultural Competence
Multicultural Awareness
Having a basic understanding of one’s own social identities concerning race and ethnicity, spirituality, socio-economic status, gender, sexual orientation etc.
Challenging an individual’s perspective and attending to and removing bias towards particular groups
Willingness to acknowledge one’s own assumptions and biases that hinder growth and change
Multicultural Knowledge
Be familiar with current literature concerning multicultural and multi-racial education
Understanding the basic constructs of racial and ethnic identity, class and/or homophobia and how to appropriately program and provide services that are culturally relevant and effective
Increase one’s knowledge about groups that are different from their own
Multicultural Skills
Ability to deconstruct individual assumptions and biases about other groups.
Recognizing one’s values and how they are similar and/or different from other cultural groups.
Deconstructing Skills

Organizational Culture

Create a mission statement that outlines the values and priorities of the organization and recognizes diversity issues as key components to the mission
Review policies and procedures to ensure that issues of diversity are infused into all aspects of the organization
Recruit and Retain and diverse group of staff/students
Outline programs and services that will meet the needs of the constituents
Survey the physical environment to determine if spatial needs are being met
Continue to assess programs and services by creating and implementing evaluation tools with learning outcomes and action plans

Advising and Helping Skills

Active listening, nonverbal skills, reflection and paraphrasing are important with working with staff/students from culturally diverse students
Ethical consideration of “do no harm” is a key component with advising and helping
Build sensitivity and competence with cultural issues around advising and helping

Knowledge and Understanding of Cultural Groups

Understand the history, traditions, beliefs and value systems of groups to understand their concerns and needs
Learn about the campus and personal experiences in higher education for cultural groups (specifically at the respective institution one works at)
Understand how individuals and/or cultural groups view themselves and how they identify
Have strong advocacy skills

Multicultural Competence Training
Create and “integrated learning environment” | Remember it is “what” and “how” we teach

Guiding Theories

Ecology Theory:

Bronfrenbrenner believed that a person is affected by everything in their surrounding environment. Situated in Process, Person, Context (micro-, meso-, exo-, macro-systems), and Time.
Micro: the system closest to the person and the one in which they have the most direct contact.
Meso: Individual microsystems function, not as separate entities, but interdependently.
Exosystem: setting that does not involve the person directly but still impacts them.
Macrosystem: An individual's culture, subculture, or other extended social structure that shapes how one views the world.

Proactive Advising:

Deliberate intervention to enhance student motivation.
Being prepared for your appointments.
Asking questions and making appropriate referrals.
Maintaining Regular Contact

Hermeneutics:

The art or science of interpretation. It’s also about clarifying messages - messages with multiple meanings and/or hidden messages

Hermeneutic Approach -
All advising is mediated through discourse (language)
Advising uses narrative language. As advisors, we help students build the story of their educations and of their lives
Human beings make sense of things from within the individual context of their own existence. When advisors understand students’ experiences, they become better advisors
Pre-Judgement:

The sum total of one’s experiences with prior texts and conversational patterns and they contribute to making cogent judgements

Critical Race Theory (CRT):

recognizes that racism is engrained in the fabric and system of the American society
Intersectionality within CRT points to the multidimensionality of oppressions and recognizes that race alone cannot account for disempowerment.
Intersectionality is an important tenet in pointing out that CRT is critical of the many oppressions facing people of color and does not allow for a one–dimensional approach of the complexities of our world.

Definitions:

Cultural Competence: “Cultural competence is having an awareness of one’s own cultural identity and views about difference, and the ability to learn and build on the varying cultural and community norms of students and their families. It is the ability to understand the within-group differences that make each student unique, while celebrating the between-group variations that make our country a tapestry.” (National Education Association)

Intersectionality:“thetheorythattheoverlapofvarioussocialidentities,asrace, gender,sexuality,andclass,contributestothespecifictypeof systemicoppressionanddiscriminationexperiencedbyanindividual” (dictionary definition)

Microaggressions: Brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults to the target person or group” (Sue et. al., 2007 p. 273)