A snapshot of multicultural training in school psychology

Abstract

With the rapidly increasing racial and ethnic diversity of the school‐aged population, school psychologists must be properly trained to engage in culturally competent practice; however, little is known about how school psychology programs prepare their trainees to serve diverse populations. The purpose of this study was to update Rogers et al.'s study on multicultural training by examining the extent to which school psychology programs use multicultural training recommendations noted in the literature. Thirty‐eight school psychology program coordinators completed the Multicultural Environmental Inventory‐Revised (MEI) to assess their perceptions of their program's multicultural environment. Participants were also asked about their training in multicultural and diversity issues and how their program conducts multicultural training. Findings suggest that programs most frequently used the integration and separate course models for multicultural training along with clinical experiences serving diverse students. In addition, multicultural coursework was associated with higher scores on the MEI Curriculum and MEI Research subscales. With regard to program environment, the percentage of racial and ethnic minoritized (REM) students was positively correlated to the percentage of REM faculty and the number of required multicultural courses. However, programs lacked specific strategies to recruit and retain diverse students. Findings and implications for training programs are discussed.