The effects of acculturation, ethnic identity, and racial attitudes on the perceived multicultural compentence of law students, attorneys, and legal professionals.

摘要

This study examined the predictive value of cultural characteristics on self-perceived levels of multicultural competency in law students, attorneys and legal professionals such as paralegals. The research questions posed sought to explore if cultural characteristics such as level of acculturation, ethnic identity, and racial attitudes would predict self-perceived multicultural competence using the four subscales of the California Brief Multicultural Scale (CBMCS; Gamst et al., 2004) that were amended for appropriate use with legal providers. The convenience sample in the study was comprised of 198 law students, attorneys, law faculty, paralegal students and paralegals, residing primarily in Southern California. Participants completed a questionnaire that included a Demographic Form, the Stephenson Multigroup Acculturation Scale (SMAS; Stephenson, 2000), the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure- Revised (MEIM-R; Phinney & Ong, 2007), the California Brief Multicultural Competence Scale -- Law edition (CBMCS-L), the Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale (CoBRAS; Neville et al., 2000), and a short form of the Social Desirability Scale (SDS-SF; Reynolds, 1982). Results indicated that facets of acculturation, ethnic identity, and racial attitudes predicted self-perceived multicultural competence among participants. In addition, several demographic variables including gender, age, education level, licensure, and multicultural education and training were found to be related to students' and professionals' levels of self-perceived multicultural competence. These results offer support to the notion of incorporating institutionally-based multicultural competence training programs such as the CBMCS in law and paralegal programs, as well as professional continuing education trainings. Limitations and directions for future research were discussed.