The relationship among school counselor's self-perceptions of multicultural counseling competencies and ethnic identity development
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The demographics of the United States are changing rapidly and ethnic and racial minority groups are becoming the majority of the population (Sue, 1989). Most notably, younger age groups have a greater proportion of ethnic minorities while older generations have greater proportions of Caucasians, Riche (1991) projects that 72 percent of Americans will be Caucasians in the year 2000, with Sue (1991) projecting that by the year 2010, Caucasian Americans will comprise approximately 48% of the population. As quickly as the year 2000, fewer than two in three children will be Caucasian (Riche, 1991) and 45% of students enrolled in public schools will be racial and ethnic minorities (U, S. Census, 1992). The demographic shift in younger generations will have an immediate impact on the educational system. Currently in California, Caucasian students compose less than fifty percent of school students and one out of every four students lives in a non-English speaking home (Atkinson, Morton, & Sue, 1993), School systems are facing pressure to deal with cultural diversity among students (Pedersen, 1991), and to address the realities of educating an ethnically and racially diverse population (Hodgkinson, 1985). If educational institutions do not meet the needs of ethnic minority students, society as a whole suffers (Haycock & Navarro, 1988).