A Youth Leader's Guide to Building Cultural Competence 

What role does fate or predestiny, play in an individual's life?  

How is death viewed? Does this group believe that there is life after death? 

Are young people as religious as older people? Do young people express their religious beliefs 

differently from their elders? 

How are religious beliefs incorporated into daily life? Are some teachings more followed than 

others? 

Are religious leaders often consulted by family or community members? On what issues? 

Are there behaviors or foods that are taboo? Which ones? When? 

How is the religion perceived in the ancestral country? Is it the dominant or minority religion? 

The following five components of culture are linked to the impact of U.S. society on racial and ethnic 

groups. 

Level of Acculturation 

Acculturation is a process that occurs when two separate cultural groups come in contact with each other 

and change occurs in at least one of the two groups. While most changes are thought to occur only in 

immigrant groups in the U.S., the dominant (mainstream) culture in the U.S. has undergone change as a 

result of contact with  other  cultures. 

Individuals within racial or ethnic groups can be:  

acculturated   having given up most of the cultural traits of the culture of origin and assumed the 

traits of the dominant culture. 

bicultural   able to function effectively in the dominant culture while holding on to some traits of 

their own culture. 

traditional   holding on to a majority of the traits from the culture of origin while adopting only a 

few of the traits of the dominant culture. 

marginal   having little real contact with traits of either culture.

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Individuals within any given cultural group can be anywhere along the continuum. For immigrants, it is 

common for there to be variation even within one family, with older generations holding onto traditional 

traits, and young people functioning more in a bicultural manner. The further away from the immigrant 

experience someone is born, the more likely it is that she or he will be acculturated. 

Individuals and families, even generations away from the immigrant experience, however, hold on to at 

least some beliefs, attitudes, customs and behaviors of the original culture. That is why the metaphor of 

the  melting pot  to describe the culture of the U.S., has been replaced by that of the  tossed salad.  In a 

salad, each ingredient retains its unique flavor, texture and shape while contributing to the whole.  

Of course, not all Americans willingly immigrated or were immigrants at all. Slavery brought millions of 

Africans to the shores of the so called New World in chains. Mexicans living on land annexed by the U.S. 

government became U.S. residents without even moving from their homes. Native Americans, including 

Alaskan Natives and Native Hawaiians were already living on land that would one day be claimed or 

purchased by the United States. Many of those native cultures were destroyed by contact with Europeans. 

Others survived, but almost all lost their land, and all have suffered tremendously from exploitative 

government policies.  

Questions to consider about individuals: __________ 

Are they bicultural, traditional, acculturated or marginal? What about their families? 

If they are not Native, how long have they   or their families   lived in the U.S.?