The relationship between racial attitudes, ego developmental level and multicultural counseling knowledge and awareness in school psychologists

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between racial attitudes, perceived multicultural counseling competence and attained levels of ego development in practicing school psychologists. Cognitive development, specifically Loevinger's theory of ego development was used as the theoretical foundation for this study. The respondents consisted of 86 practicing school psychologists who were drawn randomly for the 2005 membership of the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). Respondents completed the Social Scale (SS), Social Scenarios Scale (SSS), the Washington University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT) and the Multicultural Counseling Knowledge and Awareness Scale (MCKAS) in addition to a Demographic survey. Data analysis consisted of descriptive statistics, Pearson's product moment correlations and multiple regression.;Statistically significant relationships were found to exist between school psychologist's racial attitudes and multicultural counseling competence. Multicultural awareness was significantly related to racial attitudes and a willingness to confront discrimination. In addition, those school psychologists who had more multicultural training perceived themselves as having greater multicultural counseling knowledge. The ego developmental level of practicing school psychologists was not found to be significantly correlated with racial attitudes or perceived multicultural counseling competence.;The results from this research provide a greater understanding of the role of racial attitudes and multicultural counseling competence in practicing school psychologists. This study's findings also underscore the importance of experiential learning to develop multicultural counseling competence. Specifically, the results help to illuminate the need to apply new strategies in multicultural courses that promote cognitive development in school psychology trainees. This information can be used to improve school psychology training programs and professional development. Additional suggestions for research and practice are provided.