Cultural Proficiency Continuum Q-Sort: Contextualizing, Setting Norms, and Creating a Professional and Safe
Space
Before you engage with the Cultural Proficiency Continuum Q-Sort (CPCQ), situate yourself as a new teacher
in a US public school that educates a majority-minority student population. You are at this school for an
interview as a potential new teacher. The principal is taking you on a tour of the school during which you
will observe a variety of sociocultural interactions. While you are completing CPCQ, consider how you may
react to the sociocultural interactions you will observe during the tour. Please understand that this is not
a "gotcha moment" and do not try to anticipate what the facilitator may want to hear, but rather give an
honest response. Thank you for your cooperation and trust the process; this will make this experience more
impactful.
Setting norms for Dialogic, creating a professional and safe environment, with Glenn E, Singleton’s (2015)
Four Agreements of Courageous Conversations. They are as follows:
1. Stay engaged.
2. Speak your truth.
3. Experience discomfort..
4. Expect and accept non-closure.
Your data and responses are confidential and will not be used for research or published without your signed
consent. Thank you for your engagement and participation.
Cultural Proficiency Continuum Q-Sort: Reacting to Sociocultural Reproductions that take place within
Majority-Minority US Public Schools and Student Populations
Next are 30 sociocultural interactions situated within vignettes describing culturally proficient behaviors,
which occur daily in majority-minority US public schools. There are six vignettes in each of the five
categories: Attitude, Empathy, Policy, Professionalism, and Teaching Practice. Your task is to prioritize
these vignettes by numbering them 1 to 6 within each of the five categories according to your level of
reaction. Assign the number 6 to the vignette that evoked the highest level of reaction, 5 to the vignette
that evoked the next highest level of reaction, 4 to the vignette that evoked the next highest level of
reaction, and so on until you have assigned a number to all six vignettes within each category. When you
have completed this task, follow the directions in the rating guide to summarize your responses.
Attitude
A. Many suspect that a student from a high poverty school with a 4.0 GPA and a perfect score on the SAT
has received a scholarship from an Ivy League School due to their socioeconomic status.
B. Black students have the same opportunities and access to attend college as their white peers.
C. Students who wear dreadlocks as a hairstyle are a distraction in the classroom.
D. It should be required for students to remove hair accessories that are associated with their culture,
tribe, sexuality, or religion.
E. All students who live in the United States deserve a quality public education, even those students
whose parents are undocumented immigrants.
F. All faculty and staff within a school setting have equal ability to transfer knowledge to students in
regards to life, culture, character, and/or academic content.
The singular pronouns: “their” or “they” are used as gender-neutral pronouns.
Empathy
A. A 10th-grade male died as a result of a car accident during an illegal street race. A group of teachers
will not attend the funeral because of the activity that led to the student’s cause of death.
B. A public school Teacher is grounded by the philosophy of their religion. Throughout their career as an
educator; they have learned to be welcoming to others’ cultural and religious beliefs even if those
beliefs are in conflict with their own.
C. In two weeks, the 8th grade teaching cluster will be getting a new math teacher who is Muslim. Next
week’s professional development is dedicated to learning about the customs and etiquette of Islam to
ensure that the new colleague feels welcomed in their new school.
D. An Asian student scored an 85 percent on today’s math quiz. The teacher expressed disappointment in
the student by saying, “Come on, you are Asian! You should’ve scored better than this.”
E. A school counselor advised a biracial student that they would appear more professional if they perm
their hair (removing the kinks) for their upcoming college visits.
F. Your colleague was pulled over by the police on the way to work this morning. You hear other
colleagues in the break room discussing the reasons why they were pulled over, and all of the suspected
reasons were related to what they may have done (i.e., speeding, running a stop sign, etc.), rather than
acknowledging that they may have been pulled over for being a person of color driving a luxury car.
Professionalism
A. A teacher asked the class who has traveled out of the country. A Black male raises his hand and states
“I have.” The teacher asked the student three follow-up questions to corroborate his story.
B. During lunch duty, teachers had a discussion in the presence of students about tomorrow’s
district-wide racial sensitivity training. A teacher commented, “Why do we have to attend this training;
the United States is post-racial because we have a Black president.”
C. The social committee at an elementary school is planning an awards ceremony and dinner for the staff
and faculty. Six of their colleagues are vegan because of their religious beliefs. As a result, the
committee has added a vegan selection to the menu to accommodate their colleagues’ religious beliefs
D. The reading specialist expressed some concerns to the Vice Principal about how her male students
emasculates her during whole group instruction. The Vice Principal said, “Don’t worry about it, that's
just how boys behave.”
E. A history teacher refuses to acknowledge black history month and does not want to teach content about
black history in the United States.
F. An AP English teacher has assigned a research paper where the students were required to write about
their religion. The teacher did not let their own religious beliefs cloud their judgement; the teacher
researched the student’s religion while grading the paper to offer relevant constructive feedback back on
the arguments made within the paper.
Teaching Practice
A. A novice teacher in a school where the majority of the students are African-American and Latino uses
hip-hop as a way to make science relevant in the student's social and cultural context.
B. An algebra teacher who teaches in a school where the majority of the students are on free and reduced
lunch requires that each student buy a specific graphing calculator for Algebra, which retails for over
100 dollars.
C. A teacher created a seating chart that placed ‘unteachable students’ in the back of the classroom, all
of whom were male: 2 Latinos and 6 African Americans. In the same seating chart, her ‘good students,' all
white, were seated in preferential seating.
D. A teacher puts together a petition to request a textbook company to remove the narrative about the
enslavement of Africans in the United States in their history textbook to accommodate teachers’ discomfort
with discussing this sensitive topic.
E. A teacher in a Title 1 school (high percentage of children from low-income families) checks homework
for completeness rather than correctness as a strategy to improve student efficacy.
F. There is an increase of LGBTQIA+ students reporting that they are being harassed both verbally and
physically in United States public schools. A group of students and teachers are researching the best
practices to implement and create a supportive environment for these students to voice their concerns in
their school.
Sample of Audio Answer
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