THE INFLUENCE OF MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING TRAINING ON SCHOOL COUNSELORS' SELF-PERCEIVED MULTICULTURAL COMPETENCE

Abstract

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.