The relationship of self-efficacy, self-advocacy and multicultural counselling competency of school counsellors: A structural equation model

Abstract

School counsellors are the main drivers of change in creating a multicultural environment for all students. This study used structural equation modelling to investigate directional relationships among self-efficacy, self-advocacy and multicultural counselling competence in a sample of school counsellors ( N = 306). The data were collected from 306 practising school counsellors in the US. The results suggested that self-advocacy was statistically related to self-efficacy, in turn self-efficacy was associated with multicultural counselling competence. Structural model indicated that self-advocacy had a strong indirect effect on multicultural counselling competence mediated by self-efficacy. Accordingly, the findings implicate that school counsellors could start with smaller and realistic projects in working with diverse school populations as their positive experiences in this area could increase their ability to advocate for multicultural school environments.