Turkish School Counsellors’ Views of the Importance of Multicultural Awareness, Knowledge, and Skills

Abstract

This study aims to determine the Turkish school counselors’ views of the importance of multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skills. In this context, participants were selected using the purposive sampling method. The participants consisted of 15 males and 27 females. All participants were selected from school counselors with experience in counseling with refugees. The Q methodology was used in the present study to identify the views of school counselors on multicultural counseling competencies. Three dimensions of multicultural counseling were used in developing the Q statements within the scope of this study. The data collection instrument of the study consisted of a total of 18 Q items regarding the multicultural counseling needs of school counselors. Basic component analysis and varimax rotation analysis showed that 42 participants could be grouped under three factors. Twenty four out of 42 participants (57.14%) were grouped under a dimension, which might indicate that the participants had a general characteristic. According to study findings, the vast majority of the participants considered themselves adequate in the dimension of self-awareness, while they considered themselves inadequate in terms of skills and knowledge.