Baseline Self-Knowledge and Awareness of Cultural Competency
1. Self-Assessment: There are subtle things we do, often unconsciously, that leads others who are
different from ourselves, whether it be culture, weight, ability, appearance, or whatever triggers
biases or assumptions, to feel powerless, isolated and undervalued. Most people don’t intend to
discriminate or judge others; however, it happens and the impact is often devastating to those being
marginalized. This self-assessment provides an opportunity to evaluate your behaviors and offer an
awareness of how you may modify these behaviors to be more respectful of all people.
2. Cultural competency is an ongoing process and a personal journey. There are six stages of cultural
competency in terms of individual and organizational development. Review the cultural
competence continuum and determine where you are in your journey.
3. Cultural Competency encompasses more than ethnic culture, it includes class, poverty and gender,
among other issues. How aware are you of these cultural identifiers and how they may impact
students – or your own perceptions? The Class, Poverty, Gender Test is a starting point to deeper
understanding of the myriad issues teachers face when building student-teacher relationships.
4. The Implicit Research Project, https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/research/, is an opportunity to
assess your conscious and unconscious preferences for over 90 different topics. Project Implicit is a
non-profit organization and international collaboration between researchers who are interested in
implicit social cognition - thoughts and feelings outside of conscious awareness and control.