Culturally Responsive School Psychology Practice: a Study of Practitioners’ Self-Reported Skills

Abstract

The American Psychological Association (APA) recognizes cultural competence as a defining feature of psychological practice, education, training, and research (Sue et al. American Psychologist, 49, 792–796, 1999). The purpose of this study was to investigate the self-appraised cultural competence of school psychology practitioners using the Multicultural School Psychology Counseling Competency Scale (MSPCCS; Rogers & Ponterotto Psychology in the Schools, 34(3), 211–217, 1997) as well as to investigate the convergent validity of the scale with the Cross-Cultural Counseling Inventory-Revised (CCCI-R; LaFromboise et al. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 22(5), 380–388, 1991). Social desirability was also investigated to determine if there was a statistically significant correlation with self-report ratings of multicultural competence. A total of 161 participants were part of the sample that was recruited from 11 state professional school psychology associations across the USA. The results revealed that the MSPCCS demonstrates convergent validity with the CCCI-R and that on average school psychology practitioners report moderately high levels of multicultural competence. There was not a statistically significant positive correlation between total scores and social desirability, suggesting respondents gave fair estimates of their self-reported multicultural competence. Implications for research and practice are discussed.