Developing Cultural Self-Awareness

Introduction

Introduction

This article presents a discussion of the need for early interventionists to develop awareness of certain cultural assumptions underlying their practice. A wide range of literature on cultural differences is used to identify five areas of potential dissonance between professionals and families from culturally diverse backgrounds: interpretations of the meaning of disability; concepts of family structure and identity; goals of education; parent-child interaction, and communication style. It is argued that awareness of one's own cultural beliefs in these areas is an essential first step in developing effective collaboration with culturally different families.

This article is concerned with the challenge of providing family-centered services in an increasingly culturally diverse society. The requirement of P.L. 99-457 for the identification of families priorities, resources and concerns" (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 1991) continues to present professionals with the formidable task of working with families in a nonjudgmental mode that at once respects families' varying functioning styles and also offers services consonant with the beliefs of professionals and the system they represent. This requirement has generated a plethora of attempts to delineate the parameters of appropriate professional judgment and intervention (Bailey &: Simeonsson, 1988; Dunst, Trivette, & Deal, 1988; and many others). Dunst et al. ( 1988) described the job of early interventionists in terms of promoting families ability to identify and utilize their own family resources" (p. 27). This discussion will focus on the challenge of meeting this charge when working with families whose resources may include cultural beliefs very different from those of professionals.

The rapidly changing demographics of the United States (Hodgkinson, 1985), and the increasing numbers of children from cultural minority groups served under P.L. 99-457 and P.L. 94-142, mean that professionals will be working with increasing numbers of families whose beliefs and practices may differ in important ways from those of mainstream American families. This article is concerned with the need for professionals to become aware of the sources of potential disagreements among such families and themselves, and to develop skills in identifying their own cultural biases to create a climate for more collaborative relationships with families.

Bowers ( 1984) argued that a great deal of cultural knowledge is tacit, that is, taken-for-granted knowledge that is often not made explicit. As a result, he contended, we experience many of our judgments as "part of the natural order of things" (p. 6), rather than as reflections of values that may be specific to our own culture. Thus? professionals' impressions of families' functioning styles may be expected to be influenced by their own, often unexamined, cultural assumptions. Unless we can step outside of our own framework, it can be difficult to see strength in behaviors that reflect different assumptions; it can be difficult to understand that a feature that appears at first glance to be a deficit may actually be a resource. For example, with regard to family structures and roles, Wright, Saleeby, Watts, and Lecca (1983) argued that pervasive stereotypes such as matriarchy among African Americans and machismo among Hispanics fail to acknowledge the strengths of these patterns--the requirements for both responsibility and authority inherent in these roles. Correa (1991) underscored this point in relation to the challenge of establishing collaborative relationships with families Prom diverse cultural backgrounds: "The belief system held by the family may actually be a strength for coping with and caring for the child with a handicap" (p. 258).

The purpose of this article is to take such arguments one step further, by emphasizing that the challenge is not simply becoming aware of the framework from which a culturally different family operates, but, more difficult, becoming aware of the cultural assumptions from which professionals derive their judgments, indeed, the assumptions on which the law itself is based. By becoming aware of the cultural basis of the services offered, professionals can begin to appreciate the relativity of their judgments. Bowers ( 1984) referred to this as the "relativistic of culture," a process by which individuals explicitly question their "taken for granted beliefs" (p. 6).

The discussion is offered with two caveats, one related to the literature base used, and the other related to the notion of culture itself. First, the discussion draws on three types of literature: (a) descriptions of traditional values and practices related to families and disability among cultural minority groups in the United States; (b) studies (most frequently ethnographic) of the views and participation of parents from cultural minority backgrounds vis-à-vis the special education system; and (c) theoretical considerations related to families, child development, and pedagogy. As is usual in literature related to considerations of culture, the research methodology is essentially descriptive and qualitative in nature, rather than experimental. The use of small samples in such literature indicates that generalizations should be made cautiously, an only to similar populations under similar circumstances; however, it is believed that the close-up delineation of processes observed is likely to allow for greater validity than may be found in surveys of large samples.

The second caveat is that it is essential to recognize that culture is neither a static nor a monolithic phenomenon; that is, there may be considerable variation within cultural groups, this variation being affected by variables such as social class, geographic location, or generational status. Further, the designations developed in the United States to refer to cultural minority groups are arbitrary, for example, the use of the term Asian to refer to such disparate national and racial groups as Koreans, Indians, Pacific Islanders, and so on. The same is true for the umbrella terms Hispanic, Native American, and African-American (for a fuller discussion of cultural and racial variability in the U.S., see Harry, 1992). Nevertheless, a number of researchers have described commonalities found among these groups, especially when viewed in contradistinction to well-recognized patterns in U. S. culture. Finally, a considerable range of acculturation is expected to be found among groups who represent either indigenous or immigrant minorities within a larger culture. The process of acculturation has been described by several scholars, for example, Ramirez and Castaneda (1974), who offered a basic framework of three levels-traditional, dualistic, and a-traditional--whereas both Leung (1988) and Red Horse (1988) expanded these conceptualizations. In this article, the term traditional will be used frequently, as a reminder that the cultural values and practices referred to are expected to exist among less acculturated families; it is acknowledged that any such phenomena are likely to be affected by the process of acculturation.

The discussion highlights five areas in which cultural assumptions underlying special education practice may bring professionals into conflict with families who hold significantly different assumptions. The five areas to be addressed are: the meanings attached to a diagnosis of disability; concepts of family structure and family identity; goals of early childhood education; concepts of appropriate parent-child interaction; and communication styles between professionals and family members.
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Meanings of Disability

Descriptions of traditional beliefs among some Asian, Hispanic, and Native American groups have shown how differential interpretations of the meanings of a disability can become a source of dissonance between professionals and culturally different families (Adkins & Young, 1976; Chan, 1986; Condon, Peters, & SueiroRoss, 1979;Harry, 1992;"Hmong Family," 1991;Leung, 1988;Locust, 1988).Thissectionuses examples from this literature to illustrate the conflict.

The first step for many professionals developing cultural self-awareness regarding the meanings of disability is to recognize that the framework of disability services in the United States is based on the belief that a disability reflects an intrinsic deficit; further, it is believed that this deficit can be identified and treated through a scientific approach. Although it is true that there is a growing emphasis on an ecological interpretation of children's difficulties (Vincent, Salisbury, Strain, McCormick, & Tessier, 1990), the medical model of disability still provides the dominant ethic driving special education practice.

Some important beliefs surround this assumption. First, it is assumed that the occurrence of the condition is located within the individual, and only in certain cases of clear genetic or biological etiology would other family members be implicated. Second, it is assumed that the condition should be treated by objectively verifiable interventions, conceived within the parameters of the scientific method. Third, the Western faith in science has tended to result in the belief that, wherever possible, biological anomalies should be corrected; there is little tolerance for deviation from the norm.

These assumptions may have to be confronted directly when working with a family who holds different beliefs. Any one of the three beliefs suggested above can become a source of dissonance between parents and professionals. For example, a holistic rather than an individualistic view of the family may lead to the belief that a disability reflects the health of the entire family rather than that of one individual, as has been observed among some Puerto Rican families (Caning & Canino,1980). Further, parents who believe that the source of a disability lies in spiritual rather than physical phenomena may be committed to spiritual rather than medical interventions; this has been documented among Mexican-Americans (Adkins & Young, 1976), Native Americans (Locust, 1988), and some Southeast Asian groups (Chan, 1986).

The narrow parameters of "normalcy" that may result from a firm belief that anomalies ought to be corrected, can be particularly poignant for many people from nontechnological cultures where a wider range of biological and psychological deviance is accepted as normal. For example, in Harry's (1992) ethnographic study of 12 low income Puerto Rican families, parents of children designated learning disabled consistently rejected the notion that their children's reading or behavioral difficulties represented a "disability"; rather, parents defined these difficulties either in terms of family characteristics that may be negatively valued but not thereby "abnormal," or in terms of negative learning experiences in the process of transferring from Spanish to English. A similar acceptance of difference has been reported by Locust (1988) regarding the view of Navajo Indians that a common congenital hip deformity is better off when not corrected, because the correction may lead to discomfort in horseback riding.

That people do not readily relinquish deeply held traditional beliefs was illustrated in a recent case in San Francisco: A Hmong family went to the Supreme Court to defend their right to refuse treatment of their child's clubfoot, because their traditional belief held that this condition was a blessing, a reward for the tribulations of an ancestor, and to interfere with this occurrence would be to bring shame and punishment on the family and community ("Hmong Family," 1991). The court upheld the parents' right to choose. This case illustrates the kind of dilemma that can arise when opposing beliefs come into conflict; it is likely that both parties believed that they were serving the best interests of the child, but one cannot help wondering what had been achieved by the persistence of professionals who seemed to place absolute faith in their own belief that the condition represented a problem that had to be fixed.
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Concepts of Family Structure and Family Identity

Differential concepts of family structure and identity present many professionals with another dilemma. A common challenge here is to recognize cultural assumptions concerning what constitutes a family, and how lines of family responsibility ought to be drawn. Typically, professionals from mainstream American backgrounds tend to recognize the parents of a child as the main authority in the family; indeed, they may tend to see the biological parents and their children as the core of a family. The existence of the extended family, of course, is well known, hut is often seen as an addition rather than an integral part of the family's identity and authority structure.

This assumption can be a source of misunderstanding between professionals and families. An example from some Native American groups is particularly telling: Cunningham, Cunningham, and O'Connell (1986); Everett, Proctor and Cartmell (1983), and Philips (1983) all observed that the freedom traditionally allowed to children

Childcare on some Native American reservations is based on a traditional sense of community responsibility, rather than individual family responsibility for children. Professionals working with such families may readily apply their own assumptions about family structure and responsibility and, in so doing, may fail to recognize the strengths that may accrue a broader assumption of community responsibility for children.

Another aspect of family structure that must be recognized as culture bound is the assumption that family means biological family. For example, the existence of informal adoption by godparents, extended family, or even friends or patrons, has been documented among working class Puerto Rican, African-American, and Native American families (Cunningham et al., 1986; Garcia-Preto, ]982; Moore-Hinds & Boyd-Franklin, 1982). Further, many immigrant families may leave some children in the home country in the care of extended or informally adopted family. Such events are not interpreted as evidence of neglect or lack of interest on the part of parents, but are understood by their communities as acceptable actions done for the good of the family as a whole.

Even within family structures more consonant with Western traditions, a range of cohesiveness can affect family attitudes toward disability. Minuchin (1974) described family cohesiveness in terms of a spectrum from "enmeshed" to "disengaged": Greater enmeshment is observed in families where boundaries among the roles of parents, siblings, and extended family are less well defined, resulting in a more collective view of family affairs, as opposed to greater disengagement, where more rigid role boundaries result in a more individualistic view. For example, traditional Puerto Rican family structure has been described as being toward the "enmeshed" side of the spectrum, with the result that the difficulties of one member may be viewed as one aspect of the entire family's health or well-being (Caning & Canino, 1980). Thus, a designation of disability may be interpreted as a statement about the family as a whole rather than about the individual. On the other hand, Harry (1992) observed that, among a group of low income Puerto Rican parents, this concept of a collective identity provided families with a kind of resilience, in which individual characteristics, such as difficulty in learning to read, tended to be viewed as a family trait and, therefore. as an acceptable aspect of the family' s identity.

By recognizing that one's notion of what constitutes a family is but one culturally derived version, professionals can begin to see the strengths in the family structures of those they serve. This may be crucial in accomplishing the desired goals of service. For example, the inclusion of influential family members other than parents may be essential if a service plan is to be successfully Implemented. By the same token, professionals may become more open to recognizing the strengths that may be present in a commonly maligned group: single- parent families.
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Parenting Style

The foregoing concerns are, of course, closely related to aspects of parenting style. In this area, verbal interaction may be a matter of some concern for early interventionists who view extensive parent- child dialogue as an essential source of early childhood education and training, and as a sign of good parenting. Indeed, this assumption is almost a given in early intervention. One might speculate that this assumption may be related to an ingrained cultural teaching-learning style derived from the Socratic method, a highly verbal question-and- answer transaction directed by the teacher, and also thought to be appropriate for parent-child teaching.

Although this discussion is not intended to deny the Importance of verbal stimulation in a young child's verbal development, professionals need to be aware that a relatively nonverbal style may also have its strengths. For example, Philips (1983) observed the greater attention to visual detail that seemed to result from the more visual, low-key verbal style of Native Americans on the Warm Springs reservation Similarly, Heath (1983) observed that the less frequent use of question-and-answer routines by a community of rural African-American parents with their young children seemed to be balanced by a high level of nonverbal and physical attention, and that the extensive verbal play among peers provided young children with high levels of verbal stimulation.

On the other hand, both Heath (1983) and Laosa (1980), respectively, observed that a higher level of formal education among African-American and Mexican-American parents correlated with increased use of mainstream interaction strategies; these authors also pointed to the implication that because increased verbal interaction is more consonant with the teaching-learning, style of schools, it is likely to correlate with higher school achievement for the children.

Another common assumption that American professionals are likely to hold is a belief in the superiority of democratic child rearing practices as opposed to more authoritarian approaches. There is no question that authoritarian strategies are out of vogue with American educationists. Indeed, Silber (1989), in a review of the literature on family influences on early development, clearly delineated the field's preference for nonauthoritarian disciplinary and instructional strategies on the part of parents, as illustrated by lower levels of parental assertion of Dower and greater use of explanation, negotiation, and question- and-answer techniques.

With regard to disciplinary strategies, however, many researchers have emphasized that such beliefs are culturally relative, and that a traditional belief in the appropriateness of corporal punishment continues to be held by some African-American, Asian, and Hispanic families (Chan, 1986; Kalyanpur & Rao, 1991; Laosa, 1983). This also applies to other disciplinary strategies, such as the use of "shaming" techniques traditionally practiced by many Asian groups (Chan, 1986). Laosa (1983) recommended that service providers become informed as to normative disciplinary practices among the cultural groups they serve, and that they make judgments based on what is acceptable to that group, rather than on the professionals' assumptions.

Similarly, instructional strategies or overall styles of verbal interaction between parents and children may also reflect the difference between more or less authoritarian or democratic approaches. Professionals accustomed to democratic approaches may tend to interpret the verbal styles of some groups as unduly harsh. Delpit (1988), for example, described the more explicit expression of authority used by African- American parents as compared to middle class Caucasian Americans; she concluded that the strength of either style resides in the child' s recognition that the parent's authority is exercised in the context of a loving relationship. Similarly, Boggs's (1985) documentation of a traditional Hawaiian parent-child teasing or "contradicting routine" showed how the children learned to interpret subtle differences in a parent's mood, which indicated whether the parent was to be obeyed. Boggs's detailed transcripts of such interactions provide an excellent illustration of how difficult it might be for a professional not familiar with the Hawaiian culture to assess parenting style in such a context.

These concerns present early interventionists with the dilemma of deciding how to strike a balance between recognizing and respecting the strengths of culturally different traditions, and encouraging families to evaluate the applicability of new strategies to their family functioning style.
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Goals of Early Childhood Intervention

All of the foregoing assumptions commonly held by American early interventionists have important implications for the kinds of goals assumed to be important in developing family service plans for young children with disabilities.

Differential goals related to verbal development have already been mentioned as a common area of potential dissonance. Another is the goal of independence, which is, perhaps, the most common goal to be found in both Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) and Individualized Family Service Plans (IFSPs), particularly for children with relatively severe disabilities. Although it is not disputed that increasing independence for any growing individual is almost an axiomatic goal, the rate of development in this area, and the meaning of this concept, vary considerably with cultural values (Miles, 1981).

It is common to hear American professionals refer to parents from other cultures as "overprotective" of their children; indeed, the literature on parenting styles among Southeast Asian and Hispanic cultures supports this notion (Adkins & Young, 1976; Chan, 1986; Condon et al.,1979). Chan's description of the relatively late-age expectations regarding early developmental processes such as weaning and self-feeding among many traditional Asian groups illustrates an area of likely conflict for early interventionists. Similar observations have been made regarding traditional Native American parenting styles and point to potential dissonance between professional and family goals. Everett et al. (1983), for example, noted a traditional lack of concern with the timing of children's developmental milestones among Native American groups. Further, these authors also pointed out that a traditional belief among many Native American groups that children are unique and complete at birth may result in "noncoercive and noninterfering styles of parenting" (Everett et al., 1983, p. 595) that may be interpreted by mainstream professionals as neglectful.

Differential standards for children's independence may relate to many other values held by a group, perhaps the most important being the extent to which the collective identity of the family is valued over the individual identities of its members. A strongly collectivist orientation has been described as a feature common to many cultural minority groups (Chan, 1986; Harrison, Wilson, Pine, Chan, ~ Buriel, 1990; Ramirez & Castaneda, 1974), who may, consequently, place greater value on interdependence rather than independence. This concern may not be so relevant in early intervention, where independence is viewed in terms of an individual child's adaptation to the environment, but may become more important with older children, where traditional mainstream expectations about becoming an income earner, or about leaving home upon adulthood, may bring professional and family goals into conflict. However, it is also possible that even in the early years, typical Western beliefs about encouraging individuality may come into conflict with views that place the family's good above that of the individual (Chan, 1986).

Professionals who are aware that the goals they would set for young children are reflective of a particular set of cultural values, and not of some universally valid truth about child rearing, will be able to acknowledge the legitimacy of differential beliefs held by families.
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Communication Styles and Views of Professional Roles

The actual process of interaction can present challenges that require the same kind of cultural self-awareness as is needed for understanding substantial issues. In other words, one might be cognizant of the cultural relativity of a particular belief, but quite unaware that one's style of communicating about this issue is culturally conditioned in important ways.

There are a great many details of personal interaction style that will not be mentioned here, because this discussion cannot attempt to cover all the likely areas of miscommunication that may occur in cross-cultural interaction. The purpose is simply to point to two central assumptions about interaction that American professionals tend to take for granted, but that may be counterproductive in working with families from other cultures: First, the notion of "professionalism" and, second, the use of what Hall (1977) called a "low context" style of communication.

Perhaps the most fundamental assumption that professionals need to be aware of is a commitment to the concept of professionalism. According to Schon (1983), this has been based on the model of "technical rationality, " the belief that "professional activity consists in instrumental problem solving made rigorous by the application of scientific theory and technique" (p. 21). Along with that goes the assumption that one' s professional self is to be presented as a somewhat different entity from one's personal self. The cultures from which many families come, however, may place a great emphasis on precisely the opposite value, the demand for personalism, which.

according to Fitzpatrick (1987), places greater value on personal relationships than on systems or formal structures. From the viewpoint of personalism, more holistic relationships, which acknowledge both personal and public facets of the individuals involved, would be more likely to result in effective communication than would the strict professional-client relationship that many American professionals have been taught to inculcate.

Both the content of one's conversation with clients and the kind of language one uses are affected by one's view of professionalism versus personalism. Several writers have recommended that professionals develop more holistic, more personalized relationships with their clients from diverse cultural backgrounds (Cassidy, 1988; Chan, 1986; Mizio & Delaney, 1981; Sharp, 1983) by being willing to discuss and address apparently tangential issues identified by the client, by being more flexible in their approach to scheduling of appointments, and by getting to know other family and community members who may be important to the family being served.

Related to this is the directness of attention to the topic at hand in discussions between professionals and parents. The notion of coming directly to the point is common in American professional behavior, but may be considered discourteous or offensive to people whose cultures require greater tact or indirectness. For example, Condon et al. (1979), in a discussion of interaction between special education professionals and Hispanic families, cited "the very directness of Anglo-American style parent-teacher consultation" and the "emphasis on immediacy in decision-making" as sources of "resentment, resistance, and downright opposition" (pp. 71-71) among many such parents. Similar observations have been made regarding interaction styles among many Asian groups (Chan, 1986; Leung, 1988) and Native American groups (Everett et al., 1983; Sharp,1983).

This brings us to a second assumption underlying the typical interactional style of American professionals; an assumption that the interests of objectivity are better served by using an interactional and conversational style that is depersonalized and decontextualized in nature. This has been discussed extensively by Hall (1977) in terms of cultural preferences for "low-context" or "high-context" styles of conversation, the latter relying on a great deal of contextual information, the former focusing on information directly related to a topic, and relying primarily on the language code itself, as opposed to nonverbal, or affective messages.

An example of a low-context interactional style is the use of formalized questionnaires with Likert-scale responses, such as those commonly used in "family assessment tools." This term is placed in quotation marks to indicate that it is seen as incongruous with the task of gleaning information about a family's values and needs. The field of education has adopted such terminology from the physical sciences, where tangible variables can be precisely measured, and has tried to adapt these methods to a field full of the contradictions inherent in human value systems.

The point here is that parents' views of their children are typically full of ambiguities and very much dependent on contextual information. It is common to hear parents begin their answers to professional questions about children with phrases such as "Well, it depends . . ." When interviewing parents who hold different assumptions about childrearing and child development, sensitivity to such ambiguity and to the need for contextual information is even more important.

The methods that must be used by genuinely concerned professionals cannot be limited to the use of narrowly conceived assessment practices that fail to legitimate the perspectives of families; rather, professionals committed to serving families need to embrace a wide variety of approaches that recognize and include the broadest of contexts and the most tangential of concerns. Parents of young children with handicaps have not had the luxury of extrapolating from their experience certain specific variables that can be neatly categorized and measured; what they need is professional people who are willing to explore the meaning of their own experience before attempting to make judgments about the unfamiliar life-styles of those they are attempting to serve.
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Implications for Professional Roles

The foregoing considerations of the need for cultural self-awareness on the part of professionals imply that professionals can no longer assume the status and stance of "experts." The notion of the expert has traditionally been as central to the practice of education as to medicine or any of the so-called "hard" sciences, and it is not the intention of this article to deny the existence of, or the need for, expertise in early intervention or in education as a whole. However, current thinking in special education, and in family services generally, is moving toward much more collaborative approaches, reflecting a growing recognition of the tremendous limitations of individual expertise (Morsink, Thomas, & Correa, 1991). This is particularly true in early intervention, as the requirement for a family plan and for a team approach demonstrates. Correa (1991) pointed out, however, that many professionals still find it difficult their roles in more collaborative ways.

Ironically, professional attempts to develop a collaborative professional style are likely to prove particularly confusing for families from diverse cultural backgrounds. The view of professionals as "experts" is well documented among many Southeast Asian, Hispanic, and Native American groups (Chan, 1986; Correa, 1989; Cunningham et al., 1986), and also holds for most low income American groups of any cultural affiliation.. Further, for parents from societies with rigid hierarchical structures, the ingrained habit of deference traditionally paid to experts in any field may mask parents' true opinions of professional recommendations or judgments. Leung (1988), in describing the traditional interaction of Asian parents with professionals, emphasized that an apparently acquiescent manner may mean "courtesy and propriety" rather than agreement. Condon et al. (1979) made the same observations in describing traditional Hispanic families. Further, both Harry (1992) and Bennett (1988), in ethnographic studies of the interaction of Hispanic parents with special education professionals, demonstrated the discrepancy between the criticisms parents offered the researchers, as opposed to the deferential "face of respect/respect" (Bennett, 1988, p. 150) offered to professionals.

Harry's (1992) study, however, also documented the emergence of exemplary parent-professional relationships through the school district's provision of a bilingual family liaison worker who was able to provide effective personalized relationships with low income Puerto Rican parents. The study reported increasing examples of parents becoming more vocal and more likely to express their true opinions and to raise important concerns, in response to changing professional behavior.

Much has been said about the question of trust: Although it is true that many parents from Hispanic and Asian backgrounds have traditionally placed their roust in professionals (Chan, 1986; Correa, 1989; Lynch & Stein, 1987), Harry's (1992) study showed that such trust may be readily undermined in a new situation where parents recognize the dissonance between their beliefs and those of the professionals who serve them. Thus, deference and acquiescence should not be mistaken for trust. Respect for parents' most un-American beliefs is the most likely route to replacing either blind trust or superficial acquiescence with genuinely collaborative relationships.

Professionals who have taken the time to place their own beliefs in the context of cultural relativity, and to establish dialogue with families by which misunderstandings and different beliefs can be clarified, are then faced with the ultimate challenge: to work collaboratively with families toward establishing some mutually acceptable ground for planning services. The central difficulty here is that the beliefs or practices of a family may conflict directly with the assumptions on which professional recommendations are based, for example, the assumption that medical or educational interventions are legitimate but spiritual ones are not; the belief that a highly verbal style of parenting is superior to a relatively nonverbal style; that verbal discipline is preferable to corporal; that earlier rather than later development of independence is preferable, and so on.

These are difficult questions that will need to be addressed on an individual basis. As a general guideline, Harry and Kalyanpur (1991) recommended a process of explicit discussion with parents regarding differential cultural values and practices, with the purpose of creating a collaborative search for appropriate and useful assistance to

families. By offering explicit respect to differing values, professionals can demonstrate their willingness to offer assistance that is acceptable to the family and, by the same token, provide families with the opportunity to evaluate alternative practices. Indeed, the requirement of the law that professionals identify families' "priorities, resources and concerns" provides professionals with a framework for inviting families to indicate where they are most open to alternatives or additions to their current practice. Professionals will need to discover in which areas families are most likely to be receptive to change, and should begin there, rather than attempting to promote radical changes in areas where families believe their current practices are effective. A posture of cultural humility and respect on the part of professionals is likely to promote the kind of reasoned parental trust we have referred to above; once this exists, families of young children are much more likely to welcome professional suggestions.
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Conclusion

The purpose of this article has been to develop some cultural dimensions of the proposition that professionals should work toward helping families draw on their own unique resources (Dunst et al., 1988). It has been recommended that, for professionals working with culturally diverse populations, cultural self-awareness is a prerequisite to developing collaborative relationships with families.

However, much more needs to be said about the process by which assessment of family functioning style is to be accomplished. For example, ethnographic approaches to gaining cultural information have been recommended in the field of nursing by Leininger ( 1984) and in special education by Cunningham et al. ( 1986). It is, of course, acknowledged that the use of such time-consuming approaches may not be feasible for most practitioners; however, there are important implications for the training of professionals and for researchers. First, students of early intervention should be made aware of the growing body of ethnographically derived information on cultural minority groups in the U.S., and on the processes that may influence acculturation; they should also be trained in the use of more open-ended approaches to understanding families. Second, it is strongly recommended that researchers in the field begin to explore ways of applying a range of qualitative approaches to the design and evaluation of services.

There is good reason to believe that informal, in-depth, and open ended approaches are essential for working with families whose cultures we do not adequately understand; indeed, preconceived question-and- answer scales may be of limited use where cross-cultural communication and different cultural values are important factors. Further, there is a need for currently existing assessment approaches to be examined for the presence of cultural assumptions that may prejudice the kinds of questions asked and the meanings likely to be attributed to parents' answers. In such ways, researchers and practitioners need to engage in intensive evaluation of the notion of family assessment.
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