Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies

Abstract

The need for a multicultural and social justice leadership approach is critical considering today's political climate that threatens the academic, career, and personal potential of students who are marginalized in school settings. We offer a leadership framework using the main constructs of the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies. This leadership framework provides school counselors with a model to address issues of oppression impacting students.

Examining Graduate Student Engagement in Counseling Services with Diverse Populations in P-12 Education

“…This is key to consider as we explore the divide between theory and practice, while examining the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies (MSJCC) as a framework that not only informs our counseling theory, practice, and research (Ratts et al, 2015), but also moves us away from the use of monocultural frameworks when counseling diverse individuals. To minimize the disconnect that is often seen between theory and practice, counselor educators must remain attuned to changes in the field and also to the practicality of information taught to graduate students to be used in the field.…”

“…Lastly, socioeconomic status and other identities of participants were not collected as part of this study. This is a limitation, considering the newly introduced emphasis on intersectionality in the revised MSJCC framework, because the dynamics of power, privilege, and oppression may influence the counseling relationship (Ratts et al, 2015). Thus, it would be relevant to understand participants' view of their own group identities and how these might impact their work with diverse student populations.…”

“…Building upon the original MCC framework established by Sue et al (1992), the new MSJCC framework offers domains aligned with the previous domain areas and also focuses on the developmental nature of the new domain areas and the distinctive layers that may lead to multicultural and social justice counseling competency (Ratts et al, 2015). The four domain areas include (a) counselor selfawareness; (b) client worldview; (c) the counseling relationship; and (d) counseling and advocacy interventions.…”

“…The revised framework has been expanded to include intersectionality or focus on how counselors' multiple identities connect to the dynamics of power, privilege, and oppression and how they may influence the counseling relationship (Ratts, Singh, Nassar-McMillan, Butler, & McCullough, 2015). The term intersectionality, coined by Crenshaw (1991), posited that the experience of oppression and violence by Black women is not an either/or experience-i.e., either racism or sexism-but a both/and experience-i.e., both racism and sexism (also Smith 2009).…”

“…Just as with the original MCC framework, within the first three domain areas, the MSJCC focus on attitudes and beliefs, knowledge, and skills. However, the new framework offers an additional focus area, action (Ratts et al, 2015). Ultimately, the MCC framework was revised to offer counselors an updated framework with which to implement the MSJCC into counseling theory, practice, and research (Ratts et al, 2015).…”