Multicultural Training, Self-construals, and Multicultural Competence of School Counselors

Children of color currently comprise an increasingly large number of school-aged children in the United States. By the year 2020, the majority of schoolaged children will consist of racial and ethnic minorities (Hodgkinson, 1985; Lee, 1995). The increasing ethnic and racial diversity of U.S. school systems mandates that school counselors possess appropriate levels of knowledge and skills to work with culturally diverse students (Durodoye, 1998; Hobson & Kanitz, 1996; Johnson, 1995). Multicultural counseling competence refers to counselors' attitudes/beliefs, knowledge, and skills in working with individuals from different cultural (e.g., racial, ethnic, gender, social class, and sexual orientation) groups (Arredondo et al., 1996; Sue, Arredondo, & McDavis, 1992; Sue et al., 1982; Sue et al., 1998). A paucity of information is available, however, regarding school counselors' competence in working with individuals representing diverse cultural groups. Counselors who do not have sufficient training in cross-cultural counseling may lack the requisite skills to work with culturally diverse clients (D'Andrea & Daniels, 1996). In fact, previous studies (e.g., Pope-- Davis, Reynolds, Dings, & Nielson, 1995; Pope-Davis, Reynolds, Dings, & Ottavi, 1994; Sodowsky, Kuo-Jackson, Richardson, & Corey, 1998) have found that certain training variables (e.g., taking academic coursework, attending workshops, receiving multicultural supervision) were significantly related to counselors' perceived competence in working with diverse populations. Because of the lack of multicultural counseling training in many school counseling programs (Hobson & Kanitz, 1996) and because of the documented role of prior multicultural training in predicting self-reported multicultural counseling competence, there is a need for research that examines the role of previous multicultural counseling training in school counselors' perceived multicultural counseling competence. Thus, the current study explored the extent to which prior academic training in multicultural counseling was predictive of school counselors' self-reported multicultural counseling competence. Of additional interest in the present study was the role of various cultural self-conceptions in school counselors' perceived ability to work with culturally diverse populations. In particular, the effect of culture on the self is termed selfconstrual, which concerns how individuals perceive themselves. An interdependent self-construal is characterized by individuals' tendency to place value on connectedness to others, social context, and relationships. Conversely, individuals with independent self-construals base their self-definitions on their unique attributes and abilities and on the importance of distinguishing themselves from others (Cross & Madson, 1997; Singelis, 1994). A distinction that often emerges between members of Eastern and Western cultures is the degree to which the self is defined in relation to others (Gardner, Gabriel, & Lee, 1999). For example, the United States is largely viewed as an individualistic (independent) society, whereas other cultures, particularly East Asian and African societies, have been characterized as collectivistic (interdependent; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Markus, Mullaly, & Kitayama, 1997; Triandis, 1989). Some researchers (e.g., Cross & Madson, 1997), however, have suggested that an independent self-construal may not sufficiently describe the self-perceptions of U.S. women and individuals whose origins are nonWestern. In fact, because relating to others and interdependence in relationships tend to describe features of female socialization patterns (Gilligan, 1982), many U.S. women are believed to emphasize more interdependent self-construals in comparison to their men counterparts. Because culture affects the development of both women and men's self-construals and their subsequent responses to others, it seems important that researchers examine potential links between these self-conceptions and other culturally related variables. …