Counselor education cultural climate: underrepresented master’s students’ experiences

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of master ' s students of color in their counselor education graduate programs. Design/methodology/approach – Experience narratives, obtained from semi-structured phone interviews, provided transcript data for open- and axial-coding for emergent themes. Findings – The reports of nine participants revealed themes of student cultural awareness, representation, support, standards, advocacy and tokenism. Research limitations/implications – Qualitative studies are context-bound and lack validity and reliability in the same sense that quantitative studies do, so the findings from this study are only transferable as far as each reader applies them to personal experiences. Further, due to the diversity of the research team, participants made choices about what and how much to share about their counseling program experiences. Practical implications – Practical implications involve recruitment and retention of students of color in master’s counseling programs. Social implications – Social implications involve the changing demographics of the counseling profession. Originality/value – This study is one of few that specifically looks at the cultural climate of counselor education programs for underrepresented students. It aims to reveal areas for growth in cultural competence in graduate training programs in the counseling field.