MULTICULTURAL COMPETENCE AMONG COUNSELING STUDENTS: A PRISMASCR SCOPING REVIEW OF CORE DIMENSIONS, PEDAGOGICAL STRATEGIES, AND COUNSELOR EDUCATION IMPLICATIONS

Abstract

Multicultural competence is central to counselor education because counseling students
are prepared to serve clients across diverse cultural, religious, social, and identity backgrounds.
Although multicultural competence has been widely discussed, studies focusing specifically on
counseling students and counselor trainees remain scattered across conceptual models,
pedagogical approaches, assessment practices, and training contexts. This scoping review mapped
the literature on multicultural competence among counseling students by identifying its core
dimensions, pedagogical strategies, assessment patterns, barriers, and implications for counselor
education. The review followed PRISMA-ScR and the Population-Concept-Context framework.
A focused search was conducted in SAGE Journals and SpringerLink/Springer Nature for peerreviewed English-language articles published from 2010 to 2026. From 1,026 identified records,
1,024 records were screened, 17 full-text articles were assessed, and 11 articles were included in
the final synthesis. The findings indicate that multicultural competence is a multidimensional and
developmental construct that extends beyond awareness, knowledge, and skills to include cultural
humility, cultural comfort, relational safety, social justice orientation, advocacy, and supervisionbased competence. Pedagogical strategies include formal multicultural training, cultural
immersion, study abroad, service-learning, intergroup contact, clinical supervision, and
assessment-based feedback. The review suggests that counselor education should move beyond
single-course instruction toward integrated, reflective, experiential, supervised, and contextsensitive models for developing multicultural competence.