Facilitative Conditions for Transformative Learning

Teaching multicultural counseling is challenging work. In order for students to learn course material, the instructor must often send them through a process of unlearning what they previously thought they knew in an effort to have them question their assumptions and form a deeper understanding of social identity. As Dibya Choudhuri notes, this can potentially lead to transformative experiences for students, as they begin to see the world much differently than they previously had. Dibya expertly uses the theory of transformative learning to shed light on what is happening in her class as her students go through this experience. Dibya chooses not focus specifically on answering a “Yes-No” question of whether transformative learning took place in her class – although I would suggest that she provides clear examples of some transformation happening. Instead, her paper does something even more interesting. Dibya uses the range of data – primarily student journals and her own written reflections done before and after each class – to arrive at conclusions about what conditions facilitate transformative learning. She suggests, with a little bit of undue modesty, that while instructors can do some things to facilitate transformations, much of it is beyond their control. True transformative learning requires a fortuitous mix of many elements – the learners, the instructor, the environment and the pedagogical process – to even have a chance of occurring

Pedagogical Strategies In Multicultural Counseling: Developing coherent assignments to promote competency

This article describes a set of assignments developed by the lead author that form the foundation of an introductory graduate course in multicultural counseling. This set of assignments draws on the vast research available on pedagogical approaches to teaching multicultural counseling and is explicitly linked to the knowledge-based multicultural counseling competencies (Arredondo et al., 1996). The overall philosophy, individual assignment objectives, student responses, and class context are described

The Overlooked Group: Career Preparation for Counselors-in-Training

There is a lack of specific resources for preparing counselors-in-training for their future profession. This article strives to identify and discuss some of the unique challenges and career preparation issues faced by master’s level counselors. The responsibility of counselor education programs to send out new counselors who are adequately prepared for the workforce is addressed, and examples of career resources used in one master’s level training program are provided

Cartographies of identity in relationship: Multicultural client perspectives of counseling

This is a qualitative study using in-depth interviews with sixteen participants of African, Latino, Asian, and Native American heritage who were clients in various forms of counseling. Client perceptions, experiences, and understandings of counseling were influenced by social identities such as race and ethnicity, gender, class, age, sexual orientation and disability of both themselves and the counselor they met with. However, the ways in which clients responded and navigated such social identity constructions was a dynamic, shifting, and context-dependent process that could not be codified into absolute prescriptions. Perceptions of shared sociopolitical experience was a much stronger bond in counseling than shared similarity on any dimension, and clients negotiated differences in identity between themselves and their counselors in flexible ways depending on their needs. Gender was the one area of identity where clients expressed rigid preferences, based on essentialized constructions of women as innately nurturing and empathic. Clients also used culture and language in counseling fluidly to develop preferred representations of self. Based on these themes, implications for counseling theory and practice are discussed

Considerations for facilitating refugee acculturation through groups

© 2020 ASGW. Globally, there are 70.8 million forcibly displaced people made up of 41.3 million internally displaced, 25.9 million refugees, and 3.5 million asylum seekers. Refugees have significant mental health needs and face multiple barriers to obtaining adequate mental health care. The acculturation process can complicate and exacerbate mental health symptoms. In this article, the authors discuss relevant cultural factors and present possible group interventions to address acculturation with refugee groups

Counseling and diversity

xv, 335 p. ; 23 cm