Content area
Abstract
Although previous research has suggested that forced acculturation typically lowers self-esteem of subculture members, traditional assertiveness or social skills training programs have often failed to acknowledge the appropriateness of different behaviors in different cultural contexts. The present study developed a special culturally sensitive social skills training program for use with several different American "subcultures"--ethnic, adolescent, and delinquent--which was offered at a culturally diverse San Francisco high school. Using a standard small-group format, it attempted to reconcile conflicting minority and majority demands through the concept of "flexibility in communication." Mainstream responses to interpersonal situations were demonstrated, but students were also encouraged to discuss how such approaches might or might not work in their own cultural milieux.
Before and after training, students were given the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, an abbreviated version of Freedman's Adolescent Problems Inventory, a (Rokeach-type) Communication Values Scale, and a specially constructed Flexibility Scale. These measures were used to test the hypotheses that, as a result of the training, students would (1) improve the adaptiveness of their responses in mainstream contexts, (2) more highly value flexibility in communication, and (3) congruent with a consistency model of self-esteem, show an increase in self-esteem.
Results failed to confirm the major hypotheses. There were no significant differences between treatment and control groups in gains in mainstream social skills or self-esteem. Treatment subjects did tend to rank flexibility higher than did controls at the end of training. Blacks showed the greatest change in the expected direction on the dependent variables; Asians and Caucasians, many of whom were immigrant, showed little change.
There is reason to believe that failure to achieve the expected results was related to two broad categories of difficulties. The first was ethnocentrism, which was retained in the content and format of the program and the dependent measures, and which affected the reception of the program by the school. Secondly, special features of the institutional setting, reflecting general systems resistance to new interventions, affected the way the program was ultimately implemented. A "therapeutic" model, focusing on creating change from within, was recommended for intervening in other systems/cultures.
