The Past Guides the Future: Implementing the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies

The authors describe the ways in which the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies (MSJCC; Ratts, Singh, Nassar-McMillan, Butler, & McCullough, 2015) can be viewed from a human rights framework and as the latest iteration in the long history of the multicultural and social justice counseling competency movement. MSJCC implementation and integration are explored, and recommendations for innovating the MSJCC are described.     

Social Justice and Multicultural Issues: Implications for the Practice and Training of Counselors and Counseling Psychologists

The authors discuss the historical and contemporary connection to social justice issues in the fields of counseling and counseling psychology via the multicultural counseling movement. In addition, the authors present ways in which social justice issues can be addressed in counselors' and counseling psychologists' work with clients from diverse cultural backgrounds and in graduate training programs.     

Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competency Research: Opportunities for Innovation

The development of the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies (Ratts, Singh, Nassar-McMillan, Butler, & McCullough, 2015) provides a framework to reflect upon previous scholarship and explore further approaches for methodological innovation in counseling. The author presents available counseling and interdisciplinary scholarship related to multicultural and social justice competency, identifies gaps and future research directions of that research, and proposes innovative strategies and methods for conducting rigorous multicultural and social justice research. Implications for preparing future counseling scholars are also included.     

Multicultural Training in Spirituality: An Interdisciplinary Review

Is spiritual diversity a neglected dimension in preparation for multicultural competency? The authors present an interdisciplinary overview of research related to multicultural training in spirituality and religion to address this issue. Findings indicate that counseling program leaders have minimal preparation in spiritual and religious diversity and interventions. In addition, spiritual and religious themes appear to be minimally included in counseling program curricula. Some evidence also indicates that religious and spiritual diversity is not considered as important in multicultural training as are other kinds of diversity. A movement to include spirituality and religious content in accreditation guidelines, however, points to a possible shift to expand preparation for religious and spiritual competency. The article concludes with implications for counselor preparation and supervision.     

Social justice advocacy among doctoral students in professional psychology programs

This study examined the relationships among multicultural competency, task-oriented coping, spirituality, political involvement, and experiences of discrimination on students’ engagement in social justice advocacy in a sample of 412 clinical, counseling, and school psychology doctoral students. Specifically, this study examined the mediating role of political involvement and task-oriented coping between the predictor variables and social justice advocacy. The results showed that the relationship between experiencing discrimination and social justice advocacy was only present when participants reported more political involvement and more task-oriented coping. The same was true for the relationship between spirituality and social justice advocacy; this relationship was only present when going through task-oriented coping. Further while there was a relationship between students’ multicultural knowledge and social justice advocacy, it was partly accounted for by political involvement. Similarly, the relationship between multicultural awareness and social justice advocacy was partly accounted for by task-oriented coping. Implications and recommendations for future research are addressed.     

Exploring the Relationship Between Pedagogy and Counselor Trainees’ Multicultural and Social Justice Competence

The authors evaluated the acquisition of 6 constructs related to multicultural and social justice competence for 60 counselors-in-training (CITs) in 3 multicultural counseling courses. Each course was assigned a unique pedagogical approach: didactic, experiential, or community service learning. Statistical analyses indicated that pedagogical approach had the greatest impact on CITs’ growth in multicultural relationship, multicultural skills, and social justice advocacy constructs. Analyses also indicated growth across all 3 pedagogies for multicultural knowledge and multicultural awareness constructs. The authors explore patterns of pedagogical impact, discuss practical implications, and make suggestions for further research.     

Facilitating Trainees' Multicultural Development and Social Justice Advocacy Through a Refugee/Immigrant Mental Health Program

This qualitative study explored trainees' experiences in an outreach program for refugee/immigrant women to examine if those experiences facilitated the development of multicultural competency and social justice advocacy. Twelve students were interviewed, and their responses yielded 3 categories: development of cultural knowledge, counseling‐related skills, and personal growth and reactions. The results indicate that student involvement in an outreach program can strengthen multicultural sensitivity and advocacy engagement.     

Throwing a Wrench in the Work(s): Using Multicultural and Social Justice Competency to Develop a Social Justice–Oriented Employment Counseling Toolbox

This article presents a social justice toolbox from which employment counselors can draw when working with various populations at multiple levels. First, the authors introduce social justice and its relationship to employment counseling (the toolbox). Second, the skills and knowledge required to integrate social justice into employment counseling (the tools) are presented. Finally, strategies are offered to maintain social justice competency so that the tools can be maintained and applied ethically and effectively.     

Addressing Classism,Ableism, and Heterosexism in Counselor Education

As the counseling profession charts its future course, issues related to classism, ableism, and heterosexism remain fully incorporated within the multicultural/social justice curriculum. The authors define each of these forms of oppression, explicate their intersections with race, and summarize the resulting implications for counseling education and training.     

Empowering communities through social media

Multicultural competence is a cornerstone of modern day counseling psychology. The new multicultural and social justice competencies highlight the integration of social justice and multicultural frameworks. These competencies include community engagement through social justice advocacy. Social media may be one way to advocate for social justice for underserved or marginalized communities. Social media networks impact in the Arab Spring and the 2016 United States (U.S.) Presidential election suggests that people may utilize social media to inform and act on their social or political views. Throughout this article, we will explore the benefits of social media for raising critical consciousness, as defined by Freire, and examine how counseling psychologists can utilize social media to engage in social justice advocacy in diverse communities.     

Infusing Professional Ethics Into Counselor Education Programs: A Multicultural/Social Justice Perspective

Multiculturalism and social justice counseling issues influence counselors' ethical thinking and behavior. Counselor educators are responsible for facilitating students' understanding of the relevance of multicultural/social justice counseling issues and ethical standards for professional practices. Added insights in these areas aid students to work within a culturally diverse society. This article focuses on the importance of addressing these complex issues by outlining strategies to infuse ethics into counselor education programs from a multicultural/social justice counseling perspective.     

Using Popular Film to Teach Multicultural Counseling: A Constructivist Approach

The use of popular film as an experiential teaching tool in multicultural counselor education has been well documented. However, existing research has been limited. The purpose of this study is to implement a unique pedagogic intervention using popular films and to study how counseling students experience the activity as part of their multicultural counseling training. The researchers utilized the popular films Crash and Precious to stimulate student dialogue and reflection on topics pertaining to race, culture, privilege, and social justice. The findings indicate that popular films, when implemented in conjunction with reflective learning activities, are effective in promoting students’ multicultural and social justice counseling competencies. Participants reported that the pedagogic activity was effective in bringing to life the multicultural course concepts and stimulating difficult but necessary conversations about race, ethnicity, privilege, and power. Finally, implications of this study could further inform the field of multicultural counselor education.     

The Relationship Between Racial Identity Development and Multicultural Counseling Competency

Eighty‐seven incoming doctoral students (65 European American and 22 people of color) completed a battery of tests (e.g., a multicultural counseling competency measure). More advanced levels of racial identity development were generally correlated with higher levels of multicultural counseling competency, greater amounts of prior multicultural training, and higher self‐reported ratings of overall counseling competency and multicultural counseling competency.     

Using the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies to Decolonize Counseling Practice: The Important Roles of Theory,Power, and Action

The Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies (MSJCC; Ratts, Singh, Nassar-McMillan, Butler, & McCullough, 2015) ask counselors to “apply knowledge of multicultural and social justice theories” (p. 8). Counselors who implement the MSJCC in this manner have the opportunity to critically examine traditional counseling theories that were developed within a predominantly White and Western framework, that reproduce North American and European colonist ideology if not contextualized, and that neglect Indigenous approaches to healing (Tuck & Yang, 2012; Watkins & Shulman, 2008). In this article, the authors present 4 key multicultural and social justice theories that can support counselors in adopting a decolonizing paradigm and implementing the MSJCC in their practice with clients: relational-cultural theory (Miller, 1976), critical race theory (Bell, 1995), intersectionality theory (Crenshaw, 1989, 1991), and liberation psychology (Martín-Baró, 1994).     

Examining School Counseling Students' Multicultural and Sexual Orientation Competencies Through a Cross‐Specialization Comparison

Professional school counselors have an opportunity to directly address the educational, emotional, and social problems facing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth. The purpose of this study was to examine the multicultural and sexual orientation counselor competencies of school counseling students through a cross‐specialization comparison with community agency students. Results indicate that school counseling students had significantly lower self‐reported multicultural and sexual orientation counselor competency scores. The findings and their implications are discussed.     

“We Are Still Here”: Learning From Native American Perspectives

Counselors’ multicultural competence is often cultivated through 1 graduate-level diversity course. Therefore, it is important to regularly assess multicultural counseling textbook content to ensure accurate representation of the perspectives of members of diverse populations. To this end, the authors interviewed 14 Native Americans to explore their perspectives on subjects related to counseling to inform clinical practice and training. Using consensual qualitative research, the authors identified 10 domains in the data. Cross analysis of the domains revealed 1 general and 29 typical categories. The identified categories have implications for the development of culturally competent clinicians. Implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Dialogical Meaning and Justice for Constructivist and Existential Psychologies

Constructivist and existential psychologies both contain tensions pertaining to self-centric and social-centric perspectives. The authors explicate these tensions and offer an alternative scheme based on dialogical philosophy. The dialogical alternative presented in this article has implications for counseling and social justice praxis.     

Multicultural competency in research: examining the relationships among multicultural competencies, research training and self-efficacy, and the multicultural environment

Research on multicultural competencies has mainly focused on the practice dimension of psychology training and practice. Little theoretical or empirical research has examined multicultural research training and self-efficacy. In this study, 119 psychology graduate students filled out a Web survey focusing on the research training environment, research self-efficacy, multicultural competency, the multicultural environment, and social desirability. Results showed that multicultural competency, research training, and the multicultural environment were related to multicultural research self-efficacy. Hierarchical regressions showed that multicultural competency predicted students' research anxiety; social desirability predicted multicultural research utility, multicultural competency, and the research training environment; and multicultural competency predicted students' confidence in research and perceptions that their graduate training programs were multicultural. Implications are discussed.     

Examining the Use of Digital Storytelling and Immersion in a Multicultural Counseling Course

This article explored the use of digital storytelling as a method to support multicultural counseling competency. Thematic analysis examined the experiences of 9 students who created a digital story through an immersion activity in a multicultural counseling course. Qualitative data revealed 4 themes: (a) initial discomfort with technology, (b) initial reservations with group work, (c) digital storytelling as a learning tool, and (d) multicultural counseling competency. Recommendations for counselor education and future research are provided. Este artículo exploró el uso de la narrativa digital como método para apoyar la competencia en consejería multicultural. Un análisis temático examinó las experiencias de 9 estudiantes que crearon una historia digital mediante una actividad de inmersión en un curso de consejería multicultural. Los datos cualitativos revelaron 4 temas: (a) una carencia inicial de familiaridad con la tecnología, (b) reservas iniciales en cuanto al trabajo en equipo, (c) la narrativa digital como herramienta de aprendizaje y (d) la competencia en consejería multicultural. Se ofrecen recomendaciones para la educación de consejeros e investigaciones futuras.     

Courtland Lee: A Global Advocate for Counseling

Courtland Lee is exemplary in his accomplishments nationally and internationally. His academic achievements are notable in multicultural counseling and social justice. His leadership in counseling has been outstanding with his having served as president of the American Counseling Association, the Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development, and the International Association for Counselling. In this interview, Lee describes his development as a person, a counselor, and a counselor educator.