Building Diversity Competence in Supervision
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BUILDING DIVERSITY COMPETENCE IN SUPERVISION
Notwithstanding that it is a core component of psychology training, diversity is one of the most neglected areas in supervision training and research. The majority of attention to diversity has been devoted to culture— just one particular aspect—rather than to the broader construct. Diversity includes culture in all its aspects, as well as socioeconomic status, race, religion, disabilities or ableness, age, gender, and sexual orientation, all of which may converge and intersect (Bingham, Porche-Burke, James, Sue, & Vasquez, 2002). As Ridley, Mendoza, and Kanitz (1994) stated, "educators with the best of intentions find themselves caught between the press to provide MCT (multicultural training) and the dual disadvantage of their own inadequate training and the embryonic state of the field" (p. 228). This is the case not only for culture but also for all areas of diversity. Clinicians report lower self-perceived competence levels in work with clients with motor and sensory impairment and with Hispanic, Black Hispanic, Asian American, and Native American clients (Allison, Echemendia, Crawford, & Robinson, 1996). That consideration of diversity is essential to psychology training is unequivocal. In this chapter, we describe the required role of diversity in psychology training, the current state of the art, barriers to integration of diversity into psychology training, and definitions of multicultural competence. Conceptualizations of culture are considered as well as approaches to acculturation
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as they apply to supervision. Emic (conceptions common to a particular ethnic or minority group and thus explicative) and etic (conceptions universal to people across culture) parameters are applied to training and to supervision. We then outline gender and sexual orientation as they have been approached in training models, providing a context to training efforts. We also review the relative deficits in training in
BUILDING DIVERSITY COMPETENCE IN SUPERVISION
Notwithstanding that it is a core component of psychology training, diversity is one of the most neglected areas in supervision training and research. The majority of attention to diversity has been devoted to culture— just one particular aspect—rather than to the broader construct. Diversity includes culture in all its aspects, as well as socioeconomic status, race, religion, disabilities or ableness, age, gender, and sexual orientation, all of which may converge and intersect (Bingham, Porche-Burke, James, Sue, & Vasquez, 2002). As Ridley, Mendoza, and Kanitz (1994) stated, "educators with the best of intentions find themselves caught between the press to provide MCT (multicultural training) and the dual disadvantage of their own inadequate training and the embryonic state of the field" (p. 228). This is the case not only for culture but also for all areas of diversity. Clinicians report lower self-perceived competence levels in work with clients with motor and sensory impairment and with Hispanic, Black Hispanic, Asian American, and Native American clients (Allison, Echemendia, Crawford, & Robinson, 1996). That consideration of diversity is essential to psychology training is unequivocal. In this chapter, we describe the required role of diversity in psychology training, the current state of the art, barriers to integration of diversity into psychology training, and definitions of multicultural competence. Conceptualizations of culture are considered as well as approaches to acculturation
115
as they apply to supervision. Emic (conceptions common to a particular ethnic or minority group and thus explicative) and etic (conceptions universal to people across culture) parameters are applied to training and to supervision. We then outline gender and sexual orientation as they have been approached in training models, providing a context to training efforts. We also review the relative deficits in training in