ABSTRACT
I am both delighted and concerned about the development of multicultural assessment. I am delighted because psychology is now beginning to take notice of culture. The developments in multicultural assessment reflect the growing interest in the psychological study of culture (e.g., Markus & Kitayama, 1991). I am concerned, however, that our efforts to advance an understanding of culture are based on narrow conceptualizations. Culture is a complex, dynamic phenomenon that is grounded in social and historical contexts (Jenkins & Kamo, 1992). Developing measures of psychological variables such as stress or anxiety for specific ethnic groups or deriving global acculturation measures based on loosely associated behavioral indexes (language, food, and music preferences) will not capture culture’s richness.
