TPC-Journal-V2-Issue1

48 A Review of the Literature on Promoting Cultural Competence and Social Justice Agency Among Students and Counselor Trainees: Piecing the Evidence Together to Advance Pedagogy and Research Amie A. Manis There is a call for research on how to effectively foster cultural competence and a social justice advocacy orientation among counselor trainees. A multidisciplinary review of the literature reveals a body of anecdotal and empirical evidence in support of the use of pedagogical strategies grounded in critical theory to this end. Critical pedagogy regarding the development of a social justice origination is emphasized. Privilege, oppression, and experiential classroom activities are presented. Keywords: critical theory, pedagogy, cultural competence, social justice, advocacy The Professional Counselor Volume 2, Issue 1 | Pages 48–57 © 2012 NBCC and Affiliates www.nbcc.org http://tpcjournal.nbcc.org doi:10.15241/aam.2.1.48 The promotion of multicultural competence is an established professional training standard in industry and higher education (Musil, 1996). As a fourth force phenomenon within the counseling profession, multicultural education is intimately tied to advancing social justice (Arredondo & Perez, 2003) for trainees in the context of their studies (Ratts & Wood, 2011), and through populating our profession with culturally competent counselors. Its value in training has been empirically validated, yet much is left to discover about how to most effectively deliver multicultural education and ensure that counselors are able to engage in ethical and competent counseling and advocacy with diverse populations (Coleman, 2006; Manese, Wu, & Nepomuceno, 2001; Seto, Young, Becker, & Kiselica, 2006; Smith, Constantine, Dunn, Dinehart, & Montoya, 2006). More recently advocacy competence has been recognized as a distinct professional standard for counselors with the American Counseling Association’s (ACA) endorsement of the Advocacy Competencies (Lewis, Arnold, House, & Toporek, 2002), the recognition of Counselors for Social Justice (CSJ) as a division of ACA, the 2005 ACA Code of Ethics , and the 2009 Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) standards. As such, there is a growing body of literature with respect to the promotion of advocacy competence among counselor trainees grounded largely in critical theories (Bemak, Chi-Ying Chung, Talleyrand, Jones, & Daquin, 2011; Brubaker, Puig, Reese, & Young, 2010; Constantine, Hage, Kindaichi, & Bryant, 2007; Goodman, Liang, Helms, Latta, Sparks, & Weintraub, 2004; Green, McCollum, & Hays, 2008; Hof, Dinsmore, Barber, Suhr, & Scofield, 2009; Lewis, Arnold, House, & Toporek, 2002; Ratts & Wood, 2011; Steele, 2008; Toporek & Reza, 2001). Naturally, counseling research on the relationship between multicultural counseling competence and advocacy competence (Manis, 2008) and effective training methods for promoting advocacy competence (Hays, Dean, & Chang, 2007; Lewis, Davis, Lenski, Mukhopadhyay, & Taylor Cartwright, 2010; Murray, Pope, & Rowell, 2010; Odegard & Vereen, 2010) is early in its development. Thus, while echoing the synergistic relationship between multicultural counseling competencies and social justice advocacy, Odegard and Vereen (2010) recently concluded “how counselor educators teach these constructs to students is a mystery” (p. 145). Their conclusion resonated with earlier expressions of this conundrum within and beyond the mental health professions. Palmer (2004) spoke to this challenge, indicating that the question of how to teach the constructs had been pondered and studied across disciplines. Amie A. Manis, NCC, is a Core Faculty member in Counselor Education and Supervision at Capella University. The author acknowledges the contributions of colleagues at the University of Virginia, including Dr. Kathleen May, Dr. Sandra Lopez-Baez and Dr. Matthew J. Paylo in the development of this paper. Correspondence can be addressed to Amie A. Manis, 255 Forge Road, Lexington, VA 24450, amie.manis@capella.edu .