A Survey of School Counselor's Multicultural Counseling Competencies

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between demographic and educational variables and school counselors' multicultural counseling competencies when measured by the Multicultural Counseling Inventory (MCI) (Sodwosky, Taffe, Gutkin, & Wise, 1994). The survey was sent to school counselors in a large metropolitan area with schools whose population ranged from 30% to 85% non-White. With 58% of the surveys returned, the majority of respondents were: (a) of White or African-American ethnicity, (b) female, (c) 36 or more years of age, (d) held a master's degree, and (e) were mostly monolingual English speaking. There were no statistically significant relationships between ethnicity, degree, years of experience, age, or language spoken and the total MCI score. Overall, all respondents reported higher than average levels of multicultural counseling competencies on the MCI. Although not statistically significant, there is a trend to indicate that the total MCI mean score may be higher for respondents who reported having taken courses where multicultural counseling competencies were integrated into all course work.