Urban Cultural Construct

Instructional value of material to clients/students:

• Enhanced understanding of clients/students and challenges they face!
• Clearer understanding the stages of psychosocial development!
• Better understanding of core needs and common coping strategies!
• Enhanced ability to identify individuals that are helping to shape the clients/students belief system and how to approach “faulty or irrational” beliefs!
• Staff/Teachers gain knowledge on how to positively guide students in developing a process to respond to the environmental conditioning that is occurring!
• Enhanced understanding of the 5-psychological sets!
• Enhanced understanding of the 5-stages of minority identification development!
• Enhanced understanding of the 7-cultural resilience builders!

1. Urban Cultural Construct: the unique development of personality and identity, heavily influenced by cultural identification, accentuated by marginalization and stigmatization from the majority culture.

Urban cultural construct is predominant among minority groups, in urban areas, that are characterized by violence, drug use/dealing, single parent homes, adverse childhood experiences, traumatic events, and serious economic and academic challenges.                          

2.   Urban Cultural Construct Conditioning:

• A way of thinking and patterns of self-defeating learned behaviors, often introduced by significant others in the individuals immediate environment.
• This conditioning is typically a result of marginalization (economic, academic, political) resulting in poverty – combined with poor parenting skills, accentuated by Adverse Childhood Experiences, contributing to  percentages of urban minorities being conditioned to be less academically invested, less economically astute, and the intense need to be accepted by culturally significant others.
• Conditioning allows an individual to essentially function on “auto-pilot” – by moralizing and justifying his/her beliefs. Once an individual moralizes and justifies his/her belief system through urban cultural construct, the individual can act on his/her beliefs without processing/filtering beliefs, thoughts, and behavior through any pro-social, moral, or rational process. 
• This conditioning allows individuals to act in self-defeating ways that intensify marginalization attempts of others.

3.   Urban Cultural Construct Conditioning – Core Components:

(a) Beliefs: Cultural conditioning begins at 3 or 4 years of age. If the majority of messages or injunctions in the individuals environment during his/her formative years ignore, negate, or denigrate the desire to achieve of the individual, particularly messages from family members or culturally significant others, the individual can become environmentally conditioned to develop a self-defeating and anti-social belief system -built upon negative messages and injunctions.

4.   5-Stages of Urban Cultural Construct

1. Cultural Identification: identification with the values, beliefs, traditions, social relationships, political beliefs and worldview created, shared, and transferred by a group of people bound together by a common history, geographic location, language, social class and/or religion.
2. Traumatic Identification: the impact of traumatic events on one’s development, beliefs, confidence, outlook, and overall ability to function.
3. Marginalization: attempts by one culture to minimize the identity, progress, and exposure to economic power, social, political, & mainstream influence of a different culture – characterized by as lack of exposure, access, and opportunity.
4. Stigmatization: a mark of disgrace or reproach. Beliefs held by the majority culture that young urban minorities are violent, academically inferior/uninterested, overly sexual, impulsive and overly image conscious.
5. Criminal Seduction/Attraction: increased risk to be lured into criminal behavior, due to traumatic events and Adverse Childhood Experiences, negative effects of marginalization and stigmatization, combined with daunting socio-economic challenges, under-performing educational systems, and poor parenting practices.

5.   The 5-Stages of Minority Identification Development

1. Conformity Stage: minority groups face the choice of conforming to the majority culture – can result in feelings/beliefs of marginalization.
2. Dissonance Stage: internal conflict with conformity to majority culture, culture of origin issues. Lack of power from connecting with one’s inherent self – intrinsic motivation.
3. Resistance Stage: extreme cultural connection-issue of personal and cultural insecurity.
4. Introspection & Awareness Stage: ability to be self-critical & self-validating, ability to objectively evaluate one’s own culture.
5. Articulation: ability to appreciate & articulate strengths of one’s own culture of origin-while respecting the culture of others.

Strengths

• Clients/Students are made aware that specific stages of development exist.
• Clients/Students can work to enhance performance in each stage.