Handbook of Multicultural School Psychology

An Interdisciplinary Perspective

Emilia C. Lopez, Sara G. Nahari, Sherrie Proctor, Emilia C. Lopez, Sara G. Nahari, Sherrie L. Proctor

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781135015183
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Counseling

The second edition of the Handbook of Multicultural School Psychology continues the mission of its predecessor, offering a comprehensive, interdisciplinary view of the field of multicultural school psychology and addressing the needs of children and families from diverse cultural backgrounds. The revised organizational structure includes the following: History and Professional Issues; Consultation and Collaboration; Interventions Focused on Academic and Mental Health Issues; Data-based Decision Making; Systems-based Issues; Training and Research; and Future Perspectives. Nineteen of the volume's twenty-three chapters are completely new to this edition, while the rest have been effectively revised and updated.

Comprehensive—In seven sections, this book covers theoretical, research, and practical concerns in a wide range of areas that include multicultural and bilingual issues, second language acquisition, acculturation, parent collaboration, research, and systemic issues.

Chapter Structure—Chapter authors follow a uniform structure that includes theoretical and research issues and implications for practice. Recent practice and training guidelines including Blueprint for Training and Practice III (2006), NASP Model for Comprehensive and Integrated School Psychological Services (2010), and APA Multicultural Guidelines (2003) are covered.

Interdisciplinary Perspective—Contributing authors are from a wide range of related fields that include school psychology, special education, general education, early childhood education, educational psychology, clinical psychology, counseling, and mental health, thus exposing readers to theory and research from various approaches.

Changes—New to this edition is a section focusing on systemic issues such as overrepresentation of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students in special education, prejudice, response to intervention (RTI) for CLD students and English Language Learners (ELL), and end-of-chapter discussion questions.

This book is ideal for graduate courses and seminars on multicultural school psychology. It is also a useful reference for researchers and practicing school psychologists and the libraries that serve them.

Part I
History and Professional Issues

1
The Evolution of Multiculturalism

An Interdisciplinary Perspective

Markeda L. Newell and Shannon Chavez-Korell

Psychological processes influence culture. Culture influences psychological processes. Individual thoughts and acts influence cultural norms and practices as they evolve over time, and these cultural paradigms influence the future thoughts and actions of individuals, which then influence the persistence and change of culture over time

(Lehman, Chiu, & Schaller, 2004, p. 703)

Proponents of multiculturalism in school psychology are often asked why there is a need for a multicultural approach to school psychological service delivery. A multicultural approach is critically necessary considering that culture has long been used in psychology to explain human behavior. Culture, within the context of the United States (U.S.), was a concept used to describe unique characteristics or behaviors of racial/ethnic minorities or groups that were deemed exotic (Pedersen, 1991). Moreover, these cultural characteristics and behaviors were often deemed as negative or problematic, and members of these groups needed remediation or help to address their cultural deficits (Sue & Sue, 2013). Therefore, it is important to understand that there is longstanding history of using culture to explain human behavior; however, culture has historically been narrowly conceptualized and applied in a negative, deficit-based manner. Thus, the multicultural movement over the past 20 years has been focused on changing the conceptualization of culture by demonstrating that everyone has culture (not just racial/ethnic minorities or the exotic), explaining how culture is a strengths-based rather than deficit-based construction, and empirically showing the link between culture and psychological functioning in a manner that allows psychologists to use culture to improve the quality of service delivery.

Anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists alike have grappled with defining culture. As a result, there are numerous definitions of culture that often create more confusion than clarity. Nevertheless, current conceptualizations of culture are similar in that culture is recognized as a core element of what it means to be human, and, therefore, everyone has culture. Marsella and Yamada (2000) provided one of the most comprehensive definitions of culture in psychology that illustrates this point:

[Culture is] shared learned meanings and behaviors that are transmitted from within a social activity context for purposes of promoting individual/social adjustment, growth, and development. Culture has both external (i.e., artifacts, roles, activity contexts, institutions) and internal (i.e., values, beliefs, attitudes, activity contexts, patterns of consciousness, personality styles, epistemology) representations. The shared meanings and behaviors are subject to continuous change and modification in response to changing internal and external circumstances.

(Marsella & Yamada, 2000, p. 12)

Given this conceptualization of culture, it is evident that a person’s multiple intersecting identities (e.g., race, ethnicity, religion, ability status, social class, gender, sexual identity), contexts, as well as his/her experiences (e.g., family, personal, professional) over time inform his/her values, beliefs, perspectives, worldview, thoughts, and behavior. Thus, a person’s cultural context, in part, shapes his/her behavior; therefore, human behavior can vary just as much as cultures vary (Marsella & Yamada, 2000). Ignoring the influence of cultural context may create an inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading understanding of behavior, especially for individuals of minority identities and backgrounds. Herein lies the link between culture and psychological functioning; that is, to understand human behavior psychologists must also understand a person’s cultural context (Lehman et al., 2004).

The current movement in psychology to reconstruct the link between culture and psychological functioning is a significant undertaking because decades of theory and research propagate the notion that cultural differences are deficits (Guthrie, 2004). It will take robust efforts to advance new theories and research to demonstrate the value of cultural differences in understanding psychological functioning. It will take even more significant effort to translate that theory and research into training and practice. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to provide a historical overview of how three dominant cultural theories have evolved in psychology; explain how the field of school psychology evolved in the context of these theories; explain the implications of this evolution of multicultural research, training, and practice in school psychology; and make recommendations for preparing school psychologists to become more multiculturally competent through training.

Theoretical and Research Basis

As stated earlier, culture has long been a part of psychological discourse, but its use has not always served clients well, especially minority clients. To explain, racial, ethnic, linguistic, economic, and religious minorities have been viewed as deficient as far back as the 1600s (see Guthrie, 2004). Since that time, several researchers have identified and explained three cultural theories that have been used to explain the identities and behaviors of minorities in the fields of psychology and education, especially racial/ethnic minorities (see Guthrie, 2004; Valencia, 1997 for more in-depth reviews). The three theories are: (1) theory of genetic inferiority, (2) theory of cultural deprivation, and (3) theory of cultural differences/diversity. These theories have formed the foundation upon which service delivery to minority clients is built; therefore, it is essential for all psychologists to understand these theories, the evolution of these theories, and most importantly, how these theories have informed research, training, and practice.

Theory of Genetic Inferiority

According to the theory of genetic inferiority, minority groups experienced academic, psychological, social, and economic challenges because they were genetically inferior to Whites (Parham, Ajamu, & White, 2011). This view of minorities had widespread negative implications for how educational and psychological services were provided to minorities in the U.S. The most significant impact on psychological services was that genetic deficiencies were believed to be the cause of mental health difficulties among minorities (i.e., within-person deficit model) (Parham et al., 2011); and therefore, psychological services were largely based on a medical model of care. In regards to education, many children of minority backgrounds were not receiving public education until the enactment of compulsory attendance laws from 1890–1920s (Fagan, 2000). However, once they began attending public schools, many of these students were experiencing academic difficulties. Instead of trying to identify ways in which schools were not adequately serving this influx of students who had not been to school before, educators had a focus on identifying the students with academic difficulties and removing them from the educational setting either through special classes or alternative programs (Johnson, 1962). The focus on identifying and removing students gave rise to what would later become the profession of school psychology (Newell et al., 2010).

To explain, the mental testing movement, which was the use of standardized measures such as IQ tests to assess ability, was emerging during the expansion of compulsory attendance. Leaders of the mental testing movement (e.g., Terman, Goddard) not only embraced the genetic inferiority theory, but they also viewed abilities as being genetically determined and therefore fixed (Gould, 1996). The confluence of the mental testing movement and an increasingly diverse student body with a wider range of academic, behavioral, and mental health needs created the ideal context for educators to efficiently assess students’ abilities and make decisions about whether they could benefit from education. It was soon evident that most of the children placed in these special classes were racial, ethnic, linguistic, and economic minorities (Catterall, 1972; Fagan, 1992). At the time, there was not major concern about the proportion of minorities in these special classes because their academic difficulties were consistent with the prevailing theory that minorities, especially racial/ethnic minorities, were genetically inferior to Whites. Thus, the genetic inferiority theory provided a strong basis for the mental testing movement, which was integral to the emergence and growth of the field of school psychology.

Although the theory of genetic inferiority remains part of the psychological discourse on minorities, this theory evolved to reflect a less fixed view of minority deficiencies. Sue, Arredondo, and McDavis (1992) described how scholars articulated a new approach to explaining the behavior of minorities that essentially “blamed culture instead of blaming genes” (p. 479). Herein lies an important shift in the psychological discourse on minorities, which is, cultural differences are a problem. This view of minorities became known as the theory of cultural deprivation, and it can be traced back as far as the 1950s and 1960s with events such as the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision, the Coleman Report (1966), the Moynihan Report (U.S., 1965), and compensatory educational programs such as Head Start (see Newell, 2007 for a review). All of these events reflect the view that minority families, communities, and schools were in some way deprived and needed to be fixed.

Theory of Cultural Deprivation

According to Parham et al. (2011), cultural deprivation “presumed that because of the inadequate exposure to Euro-American values, norms, customs, and lifestyles, people of color were culturally deprived and required cultural enrichment” (p. 19); thus, any deviation from the Euro-American norm was seen as deficient, maladaptive, or pathological (Garcia-Coll, Akerman, & Cicchetti, 2000; Parham et al., 2011). With this conceptualization of the relationship between culture and psychological functioning, cultural differences were considered the cause of psychological problems. Therefore, the culture of minorities required remediation in order to address any educational, social, or psychological difficulties they were experiencing.

As the cultural deprivation theory gained prominence, the field of school psychology was becoming a recognized profession. The Thayer Conference was held in 1954 to establish the training standards and credentials for school psychologists (Fagan, 2005). However, neither diversity nor culture was mentioned at this conference, even though the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision was handed down shortly before the Thayer Conference was held. As Fagan (2005) explained, “the participants did not perceive these issues as key influences to the standards that needed to be developed for the future” (p. 244). Although school psychologists were serving minorities and likely encountering cultural differences in service delivery, there was no formal analysis or acknowledgement of how they should be addressing cultural diversity in their service delivery. This was especially concerning given the decision to integrate schools. Therefore, the foundation of service to culturally diverse populations was built on theories of genetic inferiority and cultural deprivation, as there was no attempt at the time to challenge the educational and psychological practices that were developed based on these theories. As a result, the profession of school psychology continued to be dominated by within-child deficit approaches to assessing children and placing them in special education, especially minority students who were considered culturally diverse (Heller, Holtzman, & Messick, 1982; Reschly & Ysseldyke, 2002; Valencia, 1997).

While cultural deprivation theory was believed to be an improvement over the genetic inferiority hypothesis, the cultural deprivation theory was also problematic. As Sue et al. (1992) explained, the cultural deficit hypothesis implies that there is a “right culture” which is inaccurate because there is no one right culture. Researchers and practitioners were focused on changing the student’s culture by remediating or compensating for cultural deficits, and/or excluding culturally diverse students through placement in special education or removal from school. Growing contention as to whether behaviors could only be assessed as appropriate or inappropriate within a specific cultural context stimulated researchers to challenge the cultural deprivation theory in favor of a culturally different/diverse theory of behavior.

Theory of Cultural Difference

The cultural difference theory emerged around the late 1980s and early 1990s. This theory states that differences in cultural norms, behaviors, and values are simply another way of being and they represent positive, healthy aspects of an individual’s functioning (Garcia-Coll et al., 2000). The cultural difference theory recognizes the legitimacy of alternative lifestyles and the value of differences (Sue & Sue, 2013). Under this theory, cultural differences should be identified and used to develop or modify existing practices that are more appropriate for different cultural groups. Using this theory, culture was...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Acknowledgments
• About the Editors
• List of Contributors
• Part I History and Professional Issues
• Part II Consultation and Collaboration
• Part III Interventions Focused on Academic and Mental Health Issues
• Part IV Data-based Decision Making
• Part V Systems-based Issues
• Part VI Training and Research
• Part VII Future Perspectives
• Subject Index
• Author Index