A pedagogical model for increasing race-related multicultural counseling competency

Research suggests advances in students’ multicultural competence following multicultural counseling training. Increasingly, however, multicultural counseling courses have emphasized self awareness, which has increased the affective demands of these courses and student resistance to learning the material. This paper proposes a pedagogical model to enhance multicultural counseling training that attends both to content and process variables that may impact classroom learning. Its fundamental premise is that psychological safety, the belief that the classroom is safe for taking interpersonal risks, must be present for increasing knowledge and awareness around the charged, and often taboo, topics of race and culture in multicultural counseling training. The model integrates research from psychology, education, and management, including identity threat, culture-centered teaching practices, racial identity, and learning frames. The authors conclude with implications for classroom teaching.