Community assessment utilizes an ecological approach by gathering qualitative and quantitative data to examine contextual factors that may play a role in the creation and maintenance of resources, needs, and concerns impacting a community. Inclusion of culturally competent interdisciplinary stakeholders who have knowledge of a community from a strengths-based perspective is critical. We highlight the process of community assessment from the initial planning stage to developing a community action plan. Strategies such as recruiting a community advisory board and use of qualitative (e.g., interviews, focus groups, observations, social media applications, photo journals), and quantitative measures focusing on various facets of community (e.g., resources, social capital, neighborhood characteristics) are considered important parts of the community needs assessment. Two case examples are provided to illustrate how community assessment can be used to inform service provision. The first case addresses the needs of underserved members of a growing community of refugee families, and the second addresses concerns to improve the academic performance of Black and Latinx students in two large public school districts. Both cases reflect the complexities of community-based assessment involving stakeholders from different professional disciplines with potentially unique agendas, various qualitative and quantitative data sources, and innovative action plans.

This chapter addresses multicultural perspectives of intelligence in the United States. Topics include fairness in testing; environment, social location, and cultural context; measures of intelligence; and outcome implications in testing ethnocultural populations. Definitions of intelligence from a cultural perspective are highlighted. Contextual factors include: poverty, home environment, education, fluency in English, and acculturation. Testing constructs such as fairness in testing, test bias, cultural loading, and various forms of testing equivalence are discussed. Alternative assessment practices focus on nonverbal intelligence tests; dynamic assessment procedures; performance-based, authentic, and curriculum-based assessment; response to intervention, think aloud protocols, cross-battery assessment; and a multidimensional bilingual assessment model. Usage of mainstream intelligence tests is discussed in relation to Black, Asian, American Indian/Native American, and Hispanic and Latino/a communities. The numerous challenges, controversies, and complexities of interpreting test scores in cultural contexts are discussed as intelligence tests are transported, renormed, and restandardized globally.