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Race Matters Consortium Who We Are About Us History Mission & Goals Glossary of Terms Working Papers Some of Our Partners Contact Us The Race Matters Consortium web-site is made possible, in part, by a grant from the Casey Alliance on Racial Equity. Glossary of Terms Bias     Explicit     Our stated values which we use to direct our behavior deliberately     Implicit     Our unconscious attitudes Cultural Competence A set of congruent behaviors, attitudes and policies that come together in a system, agency or professional and enable that system, agency or professional to work effectively in cross-cultural situations. The word is used because it implies the integrated pattern of human behavior that includes thought, communication, actions, customs, beliefs, values and institutions of a racial, ethnic, religious or social group. The word competence is used because it implies having the capacity to function effectively. A culturally competent system of care acknowledges and incorporates--at all levels--the importance of culture, the assessment of cross-cultural relations, vigilance towards the dynamics that result from cultural differences, the expansion of cultural knowledge and the adaptation of services to meet culturally unique needs. Source: Cross, T. (1988) Fall, 1988 issue of "Focal Point", the bulletin of The Research and Training Center on Family Support and Children's Mental Health, Portland State University, P.O. Box 751, Portland, OR 97207. Race Race is not “… a biological or genetic category, but rather, a way of interpreting differences between people [that] creates or reinforces inequalities among them – a political construct. In other words, “race” is an unequal relationship between social groups, represented by the privileged access to power and resources by one group over another.” Manning Marable, Structural Racism and American Democracy, September 2000. Racial Equity “A social outcomes picture in which the distribution of society’s resources, opportunities, and burdens are not predictable by race and race is not consistently associated with the incidence of privilege and disadvantage.” What Do We Mean By Racial Equity, Aspen Institute Roundtable on Comprehensive Community Initiatives Structural Racism “the many factors that work to produce and maintain racial inequities in America today. It identifies aspects of our history and culture that have allowed the privileges associated with “whiteness” and the disadvantages associated with “color’ to endure and adapt within the political economy over time. It points out the ways in which public policies, institutional practices and cultural representations reproduce racially inequitable outcomes.” Aspen Institute, Roundtable on Comprehensive Community Initiatives Project on Racial Equity and Community Building, 2003,Operationalizing a Structural Racism Analysis: The Structural Racism Theory of Change Process. Overrepresentation, Disproportionality & Disparity: What they are and how they relate to each other Disproportionality refers to a situation in which a particular racial/ethnic group of children is represented in foster care at a higher percentage than other racial/ethnic groups. It looks across racial/ethnic groups at relative ratios of children at various points in the child welfare system to their numbers in the general population. Overrepresentation refers to the difference between how children are represented at some point in the child welfare system and how they are represented in the general population. Disparity refers to disparate or inequitable treatment (how the individual is treated) or services (types, quality, and quantity of services available) provided to minority children as compared to those provided to similarly situated Caucasian children. Defining Disproportionality: A Concept Paper -- .pdf This paper was prepared by Casey Family Programs with input from the Children and Family Research Center and Westat in March, 2002, to provide a common definition for the discussion of disproportionality. A Model for Examining Disproportionality -- .doc or .pdf The Race Matters Consortium developed a model (adapted from Barth, Green & Miller, 2001) to provide a context for closer examination of the related factors impacting children as they enter and travel through the child welfare system. This model hypothesizes two pathways into the child welfare system. You can view or download the model as either a Word document (".doc") or as a pdf.