The school-wide cultural competence observation checklist for school counselors: an exploratory factor analysis

Professional School Counseling, April, 2008 by Judith A. Nelson, Rebecca M. Bustamante, Eric D. Wilson, Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie

IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

Implications for further research include the importance of utilizing the SCCOC in a variety of school counseling programs as a data collection and program planning tool. Follow-up studies could be conducted with professional school counselors to examine their perceptions of the utility of the instrument in conducting culture audits to assess school-wide cultural competence. Pertinent information can be gleaned from focus group interviews, surveys, and field observations. Correlational studies then could be conducted using student achievement data. Another implication for further research emerging in our study was the interplay between individual cultural competence and organizational (school-wide) cultural competence. A worthwhile project would be a correlational study examining the relationship between scores yielded by the School Counselor Multicultural Competence Checklist (Holcomb-McCoy, 2004) and the SCCOC.

Professional school counselors as leaders must be equipped with the necessary tools to collaborate with school administrators in assessing how well policies, programs, and practices align with the needs of diverse groups and prepare students to interact globally. The SCCOC, as part of a culture audit, provides one tool for assessing school-wide cultural competence and could be included in pre-service training and professional development to better prepare professional school counselors to manage effectively diversity through their comprehensive guidance programs.

An essential step in promoting cultural competence in professional school counseling is for school counselors to become an integral part of the "culture audit" process to determine need areas for systemic change. Culture audit data reveal strengths and need areas to inform strategic planning for comprehensive guidance programs. School-wide cultural competence aligns with the position statements of ASCA and the Ethical Standards for School Counselors (ASCA, 2004a). Comprehensive guidance programs are the logical venues for implementing action plans based on culture audit data because they are programs for all students.

Following are some specific practices for school counselors as they work to improve the cultural proficiency of their school settings: (a) partner with the principal to be the leaders in assessing school-wide cultural competence; (b) identify a diverse team of teacher leaders and other stakeholders to assist in the assessment; (c) use a research-based instrument such as the SCCOC to determine strength and need areas in school-wide cultural competence; (d) include activities in the comprehensive guidance program to address the cultural competence need areas of the school such as providing group counseling for minority students who might be able to qualify for honors or gifted programs with additional support, offering support groups for marginalized youth such as gay, lesbian, or questioning youth, and developing a prevention program for conflicts arising from cultural differences; (e) become knowledgeable about racial identity development and include this knowledge in the comprehensive guidance program through classroom guidance lessons, small group sessions, staff development, and school programs designed to enhance the understanding of the impact that race and ethnicity have on child development; and (f) model cultural competence and challenge inequitable organizational policies and practices.