A Youth Leader's Guide to Building Cultural Competence 

Chapter Two 

Self Assessment 

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 

Explore your own cultural values and beliefs. 

these issues with colleagues. 

Acknowledging Your Cultural Heritage

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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?