Multicultural Counseling Competence: A Construct in Search of Operationalization

The work of many great scholars has proliferated a sizable body of knowledge on the construct of multicultural counseling competence. However, the construct’s operationalization remains obscured, perplexing, and frustrating to practitioners who attempt to translate the scholarship into practice. We identify ten definitional problems that prevent the construct from evolving into a cohesive form that can inform practitioners’ work. These include: an indistinct purpose, culturally general/culturally specific divide, terminological interchange, confusing competency with competence, lack of integration, no definition, ambiguity, equivocation, circular reasoning, and divergence. Furthermore, the three major models of the construct—skills-based, adaptation, and process-oriented—share six limitations. They lack interdependence, prescriptive methods, deep incorporation of culture, coherent designs, conclusive research support, and they are oversimplifications. We call on the community of our fellow scholars to collaborate in reconceptualizing this complex construct into a sound, applicable guide for practitioners’ work with diverse clients.