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Multicultural Counseling Competence of School Counselors: Relationship to Multicultural Behaviors and Perceived School Climate

Diversity in the United States is steadily increasing with racial and ethnic groups traditionally called minorities expected to account for over 50% of the U.S. population by 2050 (U.S. Census Projections, 2009). At the same time, the school age population is expected to consist of 60% students from "minority" backgrounds. Yet, school counselors are mostly from White, European backgrounds and are projected to continue to come from that background (Brown, Parham, and Yonker, 1996; Pack-Brown, 1999; Vaughn, 2007). This creates frequent cross-cultural counseling relationships within schools necessitating that school counselors have multicultural competence. Multicultural counseling competence (MCC) has been related to awareness of privilege (Mindrup, Spray, and Lamberghini-West, 2011). This research investigates that connection and the connection of self-reported MCC of school counselors to their multicultural school counseling behavior. The research also examines the connection with school climate, which has been connected in previous literature to academic achievement. This research indicates relationships between the self-reported MCC of school counselors and awareness of privilege and oppression. Results indicated a predictive relationship between MCC and awareness of privilege and oppression on multicultural school counseling behavior. Furthermore, results indicated a predictive relationship between MCC and awareness of privilege and oppression on perceived school climate. Results also indicate a relationship between reported multicultural school counseling behavior and perceived school climate. Selected demographic factors were also examined, indicating differences in the constructs of interest based on gender, ethnicity, and having taken a multicultural class. Relationships and differences remain after accounting for social desirability.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-5768
Date01 January 2014
CreatorsGreene, Jennifer
PublisherSTARS
Source SetsUniversity of Central Florida
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceElectronic Theses and Dissertations

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