How to successfully engage with culture and diversity issues in a cross-cultural counselling process: From research to better practice (original) (raw)
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Exploring Counsellors’ Understanding and Practice of Multicultural Counselling in Malaysia
Journal of Nusantara Studies (JONUS)
Background and Purpose: In order to make counselling meaningful and culturally relevant, it is essential for counsellors to have a practical counselling model that is context-specific and matches the needs and values of the population of that specific culture. Hence, the present research aims to explore professional counsellors’ understanding and practice of multicultural counselling in Malaysia. Methodology: This study adopted a complementarity mixed-method research design using both qualitative and quantitative approaches to gauge the different features of multicultural counselling competency. Findings: Malaysian professional counsellors, as a group, perceived themselves to be multiculturally competent. The most challenging cases encountered by Malaysian counsellors were (a) counselling culturally challenging clients (i.e., culturally different clients), (b) counselling culturally challenging issues/problems (culturally sensitive and complicated issues/problems in Malaysia), a...
Journal of Nusantara Studies (JONUS)
Background and Purpose: The contemporary status of multicultural counselling field in Malaysia is ambiguous as there is limited research in this field. Even though Malaysia is deemed as a multicultural nation, there are still some issues and concerns with regards to the understanding and practice of multicultural counselling. Hence, the present research aims to: (a) explore the definitions of the term ‘multicultural counselling’ as perceived by professional counsellors; (b) identify the dimensions of multicultural competence as perceived by counsellors’ community sample; (c) identify the characteristics of a multiculturally competent counsellor; and (d) explore the most challenging cases or anecdotes experienced by professional counsellors when counselling culturally different clients in the local context. Methodology: Semi-structured in-depth interviews were employed to gather 22 professional counsellors’ reflections on lived counselling experiences and their perceptions of multi...
Malaysian Counsellors' Experiences and Perceptions of Multicultural Counselling: A Qualitative Study
This qualitative research explored the experiences and perceptions of 12 professional counsellors with regard to the practice of multicultural counselling in Malaysia. These counsellors were registered (KB) with the Malaysia Board of Counsellors (MBC) and were holders of a practising license (PA). They came from diverse work settings, ethnicity, religion, gender, and age groups. The study used semi-structured in-depth interviews as data collection methods. Based on a thematic analysis using NVivo 8, several major themes emerged based on four probing topics: understanding of multicultural counselling, definition of multicultural competence concept, characteristics of a multiculturally competent counsellor, and challenging multicultural case. The themes were then reported and discussed individually. Research implications for the education and training of counsellors in the specific Malaysian socio-political context are discussed. Future research directions for improving the current education and training of counsellors are recommended. Some limitations of the study are also discussed.
2015
A national survey was conducted to investigate the dimension and extent of multicultural counselling competency (MCC) of counsellors who are registered with the Malaysia Board of Counsellors and had practised multicultural counselling in Malaysia. A total of 508 counsellors (response rate of 34%) from various states and work settings completed the surveys using either the pen-and-paper (mailed) or electronic (online) surveys. The survey questionnaire was a 47-item Multicultural Counselling Survey-Malaysian Counsellor Edition (MCS-MCE), which comprised 2 main instruments: Demographic and MCC questionnaire. An exploratory factor analysis revealed more than the three proposed dimensions (awareness, knowledge, and skills) in the literature as constituents of MCC. There was no significant difference in perceived MCCs due to completion of multicultural courses, but significant differences were observed due to ethnicity and participation in recent multicultural training. Direct implication...
Journal of education and e-learning research, 2020
The competency of multicultural counselling is an aspect which needs to be mastered by a counsellor in order to provide good counselling services to clients especially when dealing with clients of different culture. The purpose of this research is to examine the validity and reliability of the Multicultural Counselling Competencies Scale which was developed based on the local culture by using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). A total of 290 final year students participating in the first-degree counselling program from six public universities were selected randomly. The results of the analysis showed that the fit value for the comparative fit index (CFI), Tucker Lewis index (TLI), and normed fit index (NFI) respectively had fulfilled the fit value of 0.90 and above as suggested by the literature. The analysis also showed the average variance extracted (AVE) values for all three constructs were 0.669 (awareness), 0.764 (skills) and 0.642 (knowledge) respectively, indicating the validity convergent and discriminant reliability were achieved. CFA analysis has removed 7 out of 26 original items due to low loading factor. Overall, CFA analysis has successfully proven that competencies of multicultural counselling questionnaire as a multidimensional construct as it has been theorized and is appropriate for measuring the competencies of multicultural counselling in Malaysia.
Challenges and transformations: Counselling in a multicultural context
International Journal for the Advancement of …, 1999
During the last two decades counselling in a multicultural context has been on the increase with more and more training programmes now including issues of race, culture and ethnicity. This has led to numerous approaches, for example transcultural, inter-cultural, crosscultural, multicultural, Afro-centric, anti-racist and black feminist, which define counselling with minority groups. Although many of these approaches have a sound theoretical base, they nevertheless remain marginal in terms of convincing the minority communities of their value and effectiveness. This is clearly seen in the premature termination and lack of participation by minorities in counselling and therapy. The chief criticism against counselling throughout this period is that, it has remained essentially Eurocentric, ethnocentric, and individualistic. Culture-sensitive counsellors and counselling within a 'culture fit' model have been suggested as a way of making the process more appropriate to a diversity of cultures. Furthermore, this has led to some practitioners strongly advocating the inclusion of socioeconomic and political constructs as part of a broader definition of multicultural counselling. For example, the issues of power and influence, cultural hegemony, racism and masculinities are becoming key schemas in cross cultural counselling practices. The challenge for multicultural counselling, in the next decade, would be to include traditional healing practices as part of its discourse, if it is to encourage the active participation of ethnicminorities. This paper is an attempt to explore some of these challenges and highlight some of the transformations that are taking place within multicultural counselling. Finally, through a discussion of a case vignette, the paper illustrates the need to accommodate traditional healing methods in counselling the culturally diverse client.
Cultural Sensitivity in Counselling for Youth Development
This paper explores the challenges which multiculturalism poses to counselling practices in Malaysian schools especially in the context of language and gender. Multicultural counselling is an important aspect in Malaysia plural society. Since counselling services has been fully implemented in every Malaysian secondary schools it is of utmost importance to investigate the perception of the effectiveness of these counselling services provided in the school environment with students of different ethnicity and gender. The participants of this study were school counsellors from Perak. This study used a Questionnaire survey which contains both structured and open ended questions designed to obtain information pertaining to the provision of counselling services by school counsellors and the problems they encountered. Interview was conducted to provide school counsellors the avenue to express their thoughts and feelings. The interview data was then coded and analyzed using thematic and cons...
Education, Training and Counseling: Implication on the Post-COVID-19 World Pandemic, 2021
The purpose of this study is to examine the reliability and validity of the translated and adapted Multicultural Counselling Competence and Training Survey-Revised (MCCTS-R) for its use in measuring perceived multicultural counselling competence among counsellor trainees in Malaysia. This descriptive-correlational study was conducted on 208 counsellor trainees from local universities. They were chosen through cluster random sampling. The drawing procedure was done using a fishbowl method. At the time of data collection, the counsellor trainees were at the end of their counselling internship in various organisations around Klang Valley and East Malaysia during the study. Based on the factor analysis, the three-factor structure, which was the same as the original version, was confirmed with 20 items retained. For reliability, internal consistency and construct reliability were evaluated and confirmed. The finding showed that internal consistency was α = .952 and construct reliability ...
International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education (IJERE)
The cross-cultural counseling inventory-revised (CCCI-R) is one of the limited instruments available to measure the observed multicultural counselling competence. Most studies utilized self-report multicultural counselling competence instruments. Therefore, for the benefit of counsellor educators and multicultural training in Malaysia, this study investigated the factor structure, reliability, and validity of the adapted CCCI-R in the local context. There were 38 supervisors who completed 205 the adapted CCCI-R for their respective counsellor trainees. As the result, internal consistency was found to be=.947, while construct reliability was found to be .968. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) yielded a convergent validity value of .909. The adapted CCCI-R factor structure, reliability, and validity were all verified in this study. Counsellor educators were able to successfully employ the CCCI-R across gender and ethnicity when rating counsellor trainees observed multicultural co...
Client Perspectives of Multicultural Counseling Competence
The Counseling Psychologist, 2002
Multicultural competence is a burgeoning area of research in counseling psychology. However, there has been little focus on understanding multicultural competence from the perspective of clients. This study used qualitative interviews and grounded theory to develop a model of clients’ perspectives of multicultural counseling. The resulting model suggested that clients’ experiences of multicultural counseling were contingent on their self-identified needs and on how well they felt the counselor met these needs. Moreover, clients appeared to actively manage and moderate the extent to which culture was broached in counseling based on a host of conditions including counseling relationship, salience of identity, counselor behavior, and expectations of counseling, to name a few. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.