Cultural and Linguistic Sensitivity
Definition: Educators, community services providers, students, families, and employers work together to identify and address transition education and service needs of individual students in ways that are responsive to their cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
Cultural & linguistic diversity
- Transition Planning Tips for Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Youth with Disabilities (PDF, 2 pages, 2017) from the PACER Center in Minnesota.
- Transition guides downloadable in nine languages, from Open Doors for Multicultural Families. You have to put them in a shopping cart and “checkout,” but the downloads are free.
- Suggestions for first contacts with diverse families, Getting Off to a Good Start: Positive Interactions with Diverse Families (PDF, 2 pages, 2015), from the PACER Center.
- Cultural Differences – An Introduction is a 4:09-minute video comparing common cultural differences between people, with acted out examples.
- Culture Clues™ are tip sheets for healthcare clinicians, designed to increase awareness about concepts and preferences of patients from the diverse cultures served by University of Washington Medical Center. Lots of crossover to education too.
- Cultural and Linguistic Competence webinar (1/2 hour long) developed by the NH Children’s Behavioral Health Collaborative. Covers engagement and communication, limited English proficiency and low literacy skills, social justice and best practices. Also reviews the demographics of today’s New Hampshire.
- National research-based practice guides and tools for engaging families from diverse cultures. A compilation of family engagement resources, particularly those which address the interests and needs of educators.The publications are arranged in order of the date of publication. From the PACER Center in Minnesota.
- NTACT has a quick guide, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Youth-Secondary Transition (PDF, 7 pages, 2017) with an overview of the topic and links to useful resources for administrators, practitioners, family members, or youth.
- Annotated bibliography, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Youth and Secondary Transition (MSWord, 14 pages, 2012), created by NSTTAC.
Identifying issues and needs
- A Collaborative Interagency, Interdisciplinary Approach to Transition from Adolescence to Adulthood (PDF, 74 pages) from the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD), helps promote a transition process for youth with disabilities from adolescence to young adulthood. It centers on four core concepts:
- Self-determination should be the foundation for transition planning.
- Transition should be viewed through a cultural lens.
- Interagency collaboration is essential to effective transition.
- Transition planning should include all the perspectives, disciplines, and organizations that will impact the transitioning student.
- New Hampshire Refugee Resettlement: A Community Integration Framework (PDF, 21 pages, 2012) examines refugee resettlement programs in New Hampshire and explores best practices that can be beneficial to refugees and their host communities.
Updated 5/1/19
