Developing Cross-Cultural Competence: A Guide for Working With Children and Their Families

The timely second edition of this popular reference provides hard-to-find information and practical advice to professionals who are working with children and families from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. It includes facts about the influence of culture on people's beliefs, values, and behaviors; descriptions of the challenges families may have adapting to a different culture; and strategies for fostering respectful and effective interactions.

Drawing on the insight of expert contributors who are themselves members of the cultural groups they discuss, the book covers Anglo-European, Native American, African American, Latino, Asian, Philipino, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Island, and Middle Eastern heritage. With updated content and expanded supplemental sections summarizing beliefs, customs, and courtesies, this book is essential reading for professionals who want to provide truly family-centered interventions for children with disabilities.

Eleanor W. Lynch is Professor and Chair of Special Education at San Diego State University (SDSU). She received her doctorate in teaching exceptional children in 1972 from the Ohio State University. Prior to joining the faculty at SDSU, she served on the faculty at Miami University and the University of Michigan. Dr. Lynch has been involved in teaching, research, and community services that focus on improving services to young children who have, or are at risk for, disabilities and their families. She directs the Early Childhood Special Education graduate program at SDSU and serves on the faculty of the SDSU-Claremont Graduate University joint doctoral program. She has directed a model demonstration project and personnel preparation grants in early intervention and early childhood special education as well as a series of research grants on topics such as parental perspectives on special education, the status of educational services for children with chronic illnesses, and individualized family service plan development. She also serves as one of the national collaborators on the Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) Early Childhood Research Institute.

Dr. Lynch has lived in and taught special education in Indonesia, taught in American Samoa, given invited presentations in Australia and Taiwan, and lived in India while her husband served on a U.S. Agency for International Development project.