Contributions of perceived cultural ambience and instructional strategies to students' multicultural competencies and attitudes toward ethnic/racial diversity and multiculturalism

The purpose of the project was to describe students' perceptions of the multicultural environment or cultural ambience of 148 counselor education programs across the nation and to predict the multicultural competencies and prejudicial attitudes of 516 students within those programs. Master's level counseling students completed a web-based survey that included the Multicultural Environment Inventory-Revised (MEI-R), Multicultural Counseling Inventory (MCI), Multicultural Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS), Quick Discrimination Index (QDI), and a demographic questionnaire.; In general, students perceived the programs as making more than a moderate effort to address multicultural issues, citing the strongest efforts in the areas of honest recruitment and climate and comfort, followed by the areas of multicultural research and curriculum and supervision. On average, students' reports indicated that multicultural training in most of the programs included the use of multiple instructional strategies. Students from most of the programs reported at least moderate exposure to racially and ethnically diverse clients in their practica, while exposure to multicultural issues in supervision was reported to a lesser extent. Students described themselves as relatively multiculturally competent, sensitive to issues of gender and racial equity, and relatively comfortable with inter-racial contact.; Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were applied to identify predictors of student multicultural competencies and prejudicial attitudes. Social desirability was controlled statistically. Students' aggregate ratings of the cultural ambience of counselor education programs were significant predictors of scores of multicultural skills and knowledge, attitudes toward racial and gender equity, and ratings of the importance of multicultural training. Ratings of traditional instructional strategies accounted for significant incremental variance in scores of multicultural knowledge, but ratings of participatory instructional strategies were the significant predictors of scores of comfort with inter-racial contact. Ratings of multicultural practica and multicultural supervision accounted for significant score variance in scores of multicultural relationship and awareness and ratings of the importance of multicultural training. Finally, students' attitudes of social justice accounted for significant score variance on the total MCI. Implications for training and research are discussed.