A Quantitative Comparison of Multicultural and Social Justice Competence between Urban and Rural School Counselors

This quantitative comparison study was conducted to determine if there is a significant difference in multicultural and social justice competencies (MSJCC) between urban and rural school counselors in Pennsylvania. The purpose of the study was to discover how school counselors in different geographical areas assess their work within a multicultural and social justice framework when assessing their cultural competence. National initiatives by professional organizations within the counseling profession outline the need for school counselors to become more active leaders of multicultural and social justice practice. Studies in counselor education have not produced inventories to assess the MSJCC of school counselors generally. There has been no comparison in the research literature between urban and rural school counselors. This study used a quantitative method with a comparative design to investigate the multicultural and social justice counseling competency level between urban and rural school counselors. Participants included certified school counselors in public elementary, middle, and high schools across Pennsylvania employed in urban or rural districts (n=134). A MANOVA analysis identified a significant multivariate effect. Upon thorough analysis, none of the competencies exhibited statistical significance at the 0.05 level, suggesting an absence of notable disparities in perceived multicultural and social justice counseling competencies across school district locations. Although variation in raw score means was observed in certain components, none reached statistical significance. Limitations of this study included the method by which participants were selected. Emails were sent to over 3,000 Pennsylvania school counselors, with only 137 responses. There was a significantly higher number of urban school counselor participants because the urban districts were larger than the rural ones; therefore, there were a larger number of counselors in each of those schools. Secondly, self-reporting has been a common practice in counseling instrument development. The results of this study showed the presence of confounding variables and extraneous factors that could have influenced the participants' responses, along with the possibility of falsified responses to appear more culturally competent. The researcher predicted that the urban school counselors would have reported a significantly higher response rate in their self-perceived multicultural and social justice counseling competencies, which did not occur through the self-reporting measure. Future research for this particular study includes administering and validating the Multicultural Social Justice Counseling Competency Instrument with different populations by comparing school counselors in different states or countries along with different independent variables, such as age, gender, and race, to see if they differ individually from the components of the MSJCC-I. Furthermore, future research should use a quantitative method to determine the difference between groups with two or more dependent variables. A t-test should also be considered as there are two means to allow a future researcher to study urban and rural school counselors' competence levels without a multivariate effect to gain a different perspective on a statistical technique used to test the mean difference between the two groups. Additionally, recommendations for future research are discussed in Chapter 5. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]