Alongside the increasing diversity both globally and in Türkiye’s population, school systems are steadily becoming more heterogeneous; and therefore, diversity and equity have emerged as critical areas of focus for educational institutions at national and international levels. To promote more equal societies and fight discrimination, specifically, the European Commission is also strongly committed to fostering more inclusive and just societies in Europe since equality, inclusion, and diversity are among the top priorities of the Commission (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2023). Accordingly, while several reports focus on European education systems and their efforts to address diversity in education, they have reported that education systems across the European Union (EU), including the Turkish education system, often fail to adequately meet the needs of disadvantaged student groups, such as refugee students, racial and ethnic minorities, those living in poverty, and other special populations (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2023; Kesbiç et al., 2024). Thus, with a shared understanding that no one should be left behind due to their backgrounds or origins, it has become a great concern for the European education systems to direct their attention to all school members and educators, including school counselors, to provide them with the support and professional development they need so that they can develop the key competencies required for effectively serving culturally diverse student populations.

School counselors play a significant role in providing support for students’ cognitive, social, emotional, linguistic, sensory, and psychomotor development to promote their learning and well-being. Given this, school counselors, as well as teachers and other educators, must possess multicultural competencies to provide effective services to all students and foster inclusive education. While multicultural competency, first and foremost, is an ethical concern in school counseling, in their seminal work, Sue et al. (1992) further described that a culturally competent counselor is one who has the beliefs and attitudes, knowledge, and skills required for “(a) counselor awareness of own assumptions, values, and biases, (b) understanding the worldview of the culturally different client, and (c) developing appropriate intervention strategies” (p. 481) to support clients from diverse backgrounds. In Türkiye, the Turkish Psychological Association and Turkish Psychological Counseling and Guidance Association also highlight the need and rationale for a multicultural perspective in counseling and stress the importance of developing multicultural counseling competency in school counselors (Mert, 2022). Moreover, the latest guidelines and policies also call for addressing diversity and multicultural counseling competency in psychological counseling (Bulgan, 2024). However, research has documented that school counselors have been struggling with developing the beliefs and attitudes, knowledge, and skills needed for multicultural counseling (e.g., Author, 2024; Koç, 2015; Yöntem et al., 2022). Within this context, understanding the factors related to multicultural counseling competency could offer critical insights into the counselor preparation programs and their ongoing professional development. While several factors, such as occupational experience, working with immigrant students, and attending multicultural education trainings (Gordillo, 2015), multicultural counseling courses (Kağnıcı, 2011), cultural similarities between counselor and client (Cabral & Smith, 2011) and so on, have been identified in relation to multicultural counseling competency, findings have called for the need to further understand the relationship between multicultural counseling competency and multiple factors. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to examine the predictors of the multicultural counseling competencies of school counselors. More specifically, the study addresses the following research question: How well do counselor demographics, training-related factors, and school context-related factors predict counselors’ multicultural counseling competency? In answering this question, this study seeks to contribute to the literature by providing an increased understanding of the relationship between multicultural counseling competency and several counselor demographics, training-related factors, and school context-related factors simultaneously.

To explore the relationship between multicultural counseling competencies of school counselors and the aforementioned variables, this quantitative study was designed as a correlational research design, as it aims to examine the relationships among several variables without manipulating them (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2009). Once the ethical approval was obtained, the data were collected from 152 school counselors selected through cluster random sampling (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2009) from preK-12 schools in Şanlıurfa, which is one of the provinces hosting the highest number of refugee students in schools in Türkiye and located in the southeast, near Syria. Of the participants, 66% were female and 34% were male. The age range of the participants was 23 to 52 (M = 30.35, SD = 5.11). Particularly, 20 psychological counselors worked in preschools, 47 in primary schools, 52 in middle schools, and 33 in high schools. Their professional experience ranged from 1 to 28 years (M = 6.74; SD = 5.50). The data were collected through the Multicultural Counseling Competence Scale alongside a demographic information form. The demographic information form, developed by the researchers, asked for participants’ gender, age, years of experience, level of education, department, faculty, and whether the participant had taken a multicultural counseling course, etc. The Multicultural Counseling Competence Scale, developed by Özer and İlhan (2014), is a 26-item, 5-point Likert-type scale (1=Does not describe me at all; 5=Describes me very well) comprising three subscales: 11 items for “skills”, 9 items for “awareness”, and 6 items for “knowledge”. The total score ranges from 26 to 130, with higher scores indicating a greater perceived level of multicultural counseling competence. The Cronbach's alpha value for the scale was reported as .88 (Özer & İlhan, 2014). For the present study, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted using LISREL to assess the validity of the scale. Based on the analysis, item 3 was eliminated due to its nonsignificant t-value. Additionally, a modification was recommended between items 15 and 19. The results supported the three-factor structure of the scale, as evidenced by fit indices (Satorra-Bentler χ²/df = 376.01/271 = 1.39, RMSEA = .05, CFI = .95, NNFI = .95, and SRMR = .07). The Cronbach’s alpha value for the present study was found to be .85. Lastly, hierarchical multiple regression was utilized for the data analysis through IBM SPSS 22 (IBM SPSS Corp., 2013), which was also used to conduct assumption checks, descriptive, and reliability analyses.

In the first step of the hierarchical regression analysis, counselor demographics (gender, age, parents’ level of education, and home residence), in the second step, training-related factors (e.g., participation in multicultural counseling courses and in-service training), and in the final step, school context-related factors (e.g., the number of students and particularly the number of immigrant students in the school, the perceived level of culturally responsiveness within a school, and the perceived support provided by the school management for multicultural responsiveness) were included to predict school counselors’ multicultural counseling competency. Accordingly, both the first and third models were statistically significant. In contrast, the second model did not demonstrate statistical significance. Overall, the model explained 37% of the variance in multicultural counseling competency. The findings indicated that home residence (β= -.30, p<.05), the level of perceived multicultural responsiveness within the organization (β= -.26, p<.05), the level of perceived support provided by the school management for multicultural responsiveness (β =.31, p<.05), the number of students in the school (β= .46, p<.05), and the number of refugee students in the school (β= -.28, p<.05) were significant predictors of school counselors’ multicultural counseling competency. However, variables such as age, gender, parental education levels, participation in multicultural courses or in-service training, professional experience, school level, and the socioeconomic status of the school did not significantly contribute to the model. The findings suggest that individuals who grow up in metropolitan areas tend to demonstrate higher multicultural competency compared to those raised in smaller cities. In addition, as the number of students in a school increases, multicultural competency also tends to improve. Moreover, the findings reveal that the perceived level of cultural responsiveness within a school and the perceived support provided by school management for multicultural responsiveness significantly predict school counselors’ perceived multicultural counseling competency.

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