| Multicultural awareness is emphasized in the counseling profession through the attention to multicultural and social justice counseling competence. While emphasized, there is limited research about multicultural awareness and no research about the process of developing multicultural awareness for ethnically/racially White counselors in training (CITs). This research study was developed to explore the process of developing multicultural awareness for White CITs in order to contribute to the ability of counselor educators to facilitate this process. Constructivist Grounded Theory was utilized with five participants who identified as ethnically/racially White, were enrolled in CACREP accredited master’s counselor education programs at the time of data collection, and self-identified as having developed multicultural awareness. There was one interview round, one interpreting dialogue interview round, and a final member check during the study to explore participants’ processes of developing multicultural awareness. Consistent with Constructivist Grounded Theory, participants were invited to collaborate in the research process and confirmed the data analysis prior to the creation of the final grounded theory.During the research process two contexts and three core categories emerged from participant interviews. The contexts observed throughout the core categories are self-reflecting and empathy. The three core categories that emerged are creating personal multicultural meaning, developing agency, and interacting with external influences on multicultural awareness. The results show the active, generative process of developing multicultural awareness for White CITs. Counselor educators are encouraged to use the results of this study to inform and
x enrich practices of facilitating this process for White CITs. Additionally, counselor educators are encouraged to build on this study by researching the process of developing multicultural awareness for all CITs to continue developing resources to enrich the facilitation of multicultural awareness in the counseling profession.
Key Words: multicultural awareness, multicultural counseling competence, multicultural and social justice competence, White, counselor education, counselor in training, process, constructivist grounded theory, Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs, CACREP |