ABSTRACT Broaching is a strategy used to discuss race, ethnicity, and culture (REC) with marginalized clients. This preliminary study outlines an empirically based model for training counseling students to adopt and engage in broaching attitudes and behaviors. This model was specifically designed for students with little to no experience discussing issues of REC. The study found the training model to be empirically significant in moving students further along the continuum of broaching styles.
ABSTRACT As educational equity faces increasing political opposition, the success and well‐being of historically marginalized and minoritized students depend in part on school counselors’ ability to lead and sustain justice‐focused, antiracist initiatives within schools and communities. Yet, navigating this hostile landscape requires more than just theoretical knowledge; it demands robust school counselor self‐efficacy. This study explores the preliminary factor structure of the School Counselor Antiracist and Social Justice Self‐Efficacy Scale (SCARSJ) using exploratory factor analysis with a national sample of 119 preservice and professional school counselors. Three distinct factors demonstrating robust internal consistency emerged: Racial Consciousness and Advocacy, Data‐Informed Equity and Community Practice, and Cultural Self‐Awareness and Reflexivity. The SCARSJ offers an initial psychometric framework to assess perceived school counselor self‐efficacy for equity‐oriented practice amid today's politically charged climate.
The enaction of laws targeting DEI in K-12 schools creates challenges that leave school counselors and educators vulnerable. Specifically, these legislative acts contradict with culturally responsive and ACA/ASCA ethics. While upholding legality is critical, left out of this discussion is how school counselors respond to the impact these polices have on racially diverse students' well-being. This brief article seeks to provide guidelines detailing how school counselors can lead effectively in these circumstances.
Drawing on the socioecological framework, this study introduced a sociocontextual model of stigma by examining multiple levels of mental health stigma and their association with help-seeking attitudes among international students using structural equation modeling. The findings indicated that campus stigma and perceived public stigma were not directly associated with help-seeking attitudes but demonstrated significant indirect associations involving stigma internalization. These results contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of mental health stigma among international students and highlight the importance of considering multilevel sociocontextual links with help-seeking.
School counselors working with undocumented Latinx students have increasingly drawn on Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, yet this framework carries an epistemological limitation: it treats surrounding systems as structurally neutral, obscuring racialized mechanisms of exclusion and endangerment. This position paper proposes a theoretically integrated alternative grounded in six pillars: LatCrit theory, Menj & iacute;var and Abrego's concept of legal violence, Anzald & uacute;a's Borderlands and nepantla theory, Yosso's Community Cultural Wealth model, Rend & oacute;n's Validation Theory, and a critique of the Dreamer narrative's politics of deservingness. Drawing on recent scholarship documenting enforcement-driven enrollment declines, fractured college-going pathways, and the contradiction of silence and disclosure produced by legal violence, the paper grounds this framework in current evidence, identifies implications for school counseling practice, and offers a case illustration of practice from within the framework.
Neuroscience-infused methods are heavily impacting the manner in which counselors, educators, and researchers approach working with clients and conducting research. While some scholars perceive neuroscience as scientifically objective and culturally neutral, that is not entirely true. Social values and systemic racism/barriers still influence studies and can result in racially biased outcomes. To bring attention to these shortfalls, I highlight methods on how to avoid scientific racism through an Africana perspective. I conclude with a call for action to galvanize counselors, scholars, and educators to keep pushing boundaries by continuously seeking to eliminate systemic racism/discrimination in neuroscience.
Longstanding violence against Asians serves as an urgent reminder for counselors to engage in culturally responsive counseling. Despite the uptick of mental health research associated with Asian communities, aggregated trends on counseling and mental health services with Asians overlook distinct inequities and historical implications. Leveraging the Multidimensional Model of Broaching Behavior, this conceptual article reframes broaching as a culturally responsive practice that references historical context and sociopolitical factors and facilitates empowerment for Asians.
This cross-sectional quantitative study examines how discrimination and self-compassion moderate the associations between family factors (i.e., shame and perfectionism) and perceived burdensomeness (a suicidal risk factor) in an Asian sample. Our study suggested that self-compassion may serve as a protective factor to help mitigate suicide risk when Asian young adults experience shame or criticism from family, whereas discrimination could intensify the feelings of being a burden to their family. Clinical implications were discussed.
Broaching is a critical skill that should be explicitly integrated into clinical training and professional development. However, teaching broaching can be challenging, as it requires addressing personal biases, navigating difficult conversations, and fostering a deep understanding of cultural humility. This article presents the BRIDGE model, a structured framework designed to facilitate broaching training for mental health professionals and trainees. Elements of the model are described, followed by a discussion of challenges encountered in its implementation and strategies to address them.
Students of color with disabilities experience compounded inequities. This conceptual article details these compounded inequities. The authors provide a review of the literature related to inequities in education, culturally affirming antiracist school counseling, intersectionality, and broaching. Next, the authors provide a rationale for implementing Day-Vines and colleagues' multidimensional model of broaching behaviors (MMBB) in school counseling with students of color with disabilities. Then, the authors use the MMBB heuristic to conceptualize practical guidelines for school counselors to engage in direct broaching with their students. These guidelines are tabulated with a description of the four broaching dimensions and their aim within the context of school counseling.
This study explored factors shaping Turkish school counselors' decisions to broach cultural issues in diverse school environments. Three distinct perspectives emerged: personal-professional commitment, context-driven advocacy, and cultural hesitancy. Findings highlight counselors' varied readiness to integrate broaching into their ethical responsibilities, professional identities, and local sociocultural dynamics. The study emphasizes the need for culturally responsive practices and specialized multicultural training to support counselors' comfort and competence in proactively addressing sensitive cultural issues within T & uuml;rkiye's unique educational context.
Broaching is a cognitive willingness or directedness to initiate a conversation on a topic that may be difficult or uneasy to discuss with all parties involved. Within the counseling context, broaching refers to the school counselor's or helping professional's effort to initiate or respond to issues related to race, ethnicity, and culture in the counseling process. Further, within the broaching framework, the counseling context is interpreted broadly, but it includes strong awareness and understanding of the dynamic interplay of race, ethnicity, gender, social class status, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, immigration status, ability/disability, and so forth, and how they individually and collectively shape beliefs, practices, value orientations, sociopolitical realities, and positionalities. Given the symbiotic relationship among race, ethnicity, and culture, this article emphasizes the social construction of race and class and how they work together to influence counseling/educational and non-counseling/educational dynamics. Because Black students are disproportionately underrepresented in Gifted and Talented Education (GATE), Advanced Placement (AP), and International Baccalaureate (IB) programs, we highlight the effects of race and class in such programs, contributing to Blacks' underrepresentation. We also include Boykin's Afro-centric cultural styles framework and Cross' racial identity theory to illustrate the additional layers to the broaching process.
This study examined the development of counselor trainees' (n = 26) broaching skills over a 15-week multicultural-social justice counseling course using pre- and posttest video vignette responses. Grounded in the Multidimensional Model of Broaching Behavior and the Multicultural Orientation framework, this study evaluated growth across five key dimensions: directness in broaching, validation of client experience, depth of exploration, conciseness and clarity, and comfort and confidence in broaching. Content analysis revealed meaningful gains in trainees' ability to explicitly name race, acknowledge systemic discrimination, and foster safe, culturally responsive spaces for clients. The findings underscore that broaching is both a technical and relational skill that requires practice, reflection, and cultural humility. Implications for integrating broaching skill development into counselor education curricula and directions for future research are discussed.
Utilizing a comparative research design, this study explored the perceived benefits of an interdisciplinary, multi-institutional learning community for behavioral health students, including counselors-in-training at historically Black colleges and universities. To understand the perceived benefits, the researchers examined quantitative and qualitative post-participation surveys. The findings revealed that overall, participants believed the Learning Community contributed to their development and practice, particularly those who had not yet earned an advanced degree. The Learning Community offered career capital via new knowledge, enhanced graduate training, a safe space, expanded networks, and interdisciplinary/interprofessional perspectives.
This conceptual article focuses on the Ujima Center located at Bowie State University. It illustrates Bowie State University's strong legacy of training counselors in evidence-based multicultural practices and the Ujima Center's innovative framework that promotes diversity and equity in school counseling through culturally affirming training. The Ujima Center developed four models;AFFIRM, SAFE, HEART, and GUIDE,—to provide culturally affirming training, advisement, support, and career assistance to Ujima scholars. In addition, the Ujima Center highlights how additional evidence-based components, such as multitiered systems of support, as well as mental health first aid training, help address the significant inequities in the availability of mental health services for students in K-12 schools. This conceptual article also explores implications for counselor education, research, and practice.
This emerging scholarship explores identity-concordant mentorship as a liberatory, developmental practice and a critical mechanism that supports the retention, professional advancement, and career trajectories of Black men in counselor and supervisor roles. Grounded in Black existentialism, this paper explores the identity-concordant mentorship relationship between a Black male full professor and a Black male pre-tenured assistant professor, which began at a historically Black college or university (HBCU), as a case illustration. Through this lens, identity-concordant mentorship is defined as a relationship between individuals with a shared racial and gender identity, and it emerges as a critical practice that sustains professional development while countering the “revolving door” phenomenon in counselor education and supervision (CES). Simultaneously, the case illustration of an identity-concordant mentorship relationship creates (1) a space of survival, (2) fosters perseverance amid personal and professional challenges, and (3) advances career and professional development. Significantly, this scholarship utilized a case illustration to demonstrate how identity-concordant mentorship evolves into sponsorship, serving as an organizational framework to effectively apply and sustain doctoral preparation throughout a career and promote professional development within the field.
A Culturally Affirming Study Abroad (CASA) model is introduced to address the needs of students and faculty who desire a different type of experience. The case study of Black Paris emphasizes the impact of culturally affirming global experiences in fostering intercultural competence, enhancing professional aspirations, and increasing Black student participation in study abroad programs. This model highlights the significance of tailored programming, led by Black Counselor Educators, in supporting the growth and development of Black Counselor Education students in international settings.
