The Role of Counselors in Facing the Challenges of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in the School Environment Through the Implementation of Multi-Cultural Counseling

Abstract

Individuals in a multicultural society cannot live apart from other cultures, but constantly interact with people from other cultures. The aim of this research is to determine the role of counselors in facing the challenges of ethnic and cultural diversity in the school environment through the application of multicultural counseling. The methodology used is a review study using 19 references with 13 relevant articles. The result is that counselors are multiculturally competent, understand their own psychophysical characteristics and the psychophysical characteristics of clients involved in counseling services, and use their deep understanding and awareness of cultural identity to bridge this gap. By appropriately matching the mental and physical characteristics of the counselor with the mental and physical characteristics of the client, effective counseling work can be carried out. A counselor's multicultural competence is a function of differences in cultural dynamics between the counselor's own culture and the dynamics of counselor culture originating from the community level. The uniqueness of students is certainly a career driver for counselors/teachers in developing their counseling skills. The uniqueness of these students can be manifested in the form of different cultural backgrounds, which is called multiculturalism. Multicultural counseling is currently needed to help counselors and students face problems that include personal, social, academic, professional and cultural problems.