UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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Author: search.filters.author.Sweeney, Samantha Courtney

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    EARLY CAREER SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGISTS' PERCEPTION OF MULTICULTURAL COMPETENCE DEVELOPMENT: A GROUNDED THEORY STUDY
    (2012) Sweeney, Samantha Courtney; Strein, William O; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    With the demographics of American school children rapidly changing and the demographics of school psychologists remaining relatively unchanged, more than ever school psychologists are working within the cross-cultural zone. This means that they are working with students and families who are culturally different from them. It has become vital that school psychologists are multiculturally competent; however how this form of competence develops is relatively unknown. Grounded theory methodology was used in the current study to explore how early career school psychologists who work in diverse schools define multicultural competence and multicultural competence development. Results indicate that the participants felt that multicultural competence should largely focus on interpersonal relationships with students and families as well as self-awareness. Additionally, the participants felt that multicultural competence was dynamic as opposed to stagnant. With respect to multicultural competence development, the participants felt that their early career experiences contributed to this area of competence more than any other factor. The foundation of their multicultural competence was made up of a desire to work in a diverse setting as well as their background and exposure to different cultures. They felt that their graduate school classes contributed to this foundation. Personal experiences also contributed to multicultural competence, but were not as significant as professional experiences.
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    THE INFLUENCE OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING TRAINING ON SCHOOL COUNSELORS' SELF-PERCEIVED MULTICULTURAL COMPETENCE
    (2008) Sweeney, Samantha Courtney; Strein, William O; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    With the changing demographics of the school population, the multicultural competence of school counselors has become increasingly important. This study examined the influence of formal training and exposure to persons different from the school counselor on multicultural competence. A demographic questionnaire and the Multicultural Counseling Inventory (MCI) were mailed to a random sample of American Counseling Association (ACA) members. Overall, formal training was not correlated with multicultural competence. However, working with and exposure to people who were different than the school counselors in terms of race/ethnicity, disability status, and sexual orientation was correlated with multicultural competence. When asked to comment broadly on important multicultural experiences that influenced them as professionals, school counselors mentioned race/ethnicity most frequently. Implications for training school counselors includes the importance of exposing trainees to people who are different than them and examining the content and style of school counseling multicultural courses.