Cultural sensitivity training and the African American client : are colleges and universities doing their part?

This research evaluates whether colleges and universities that are funded by the Rehabilitation Services Administration are actually teaching multicultural courses that are sensitive to African American clients with disabilities. A total of fifty-five (55) colleges and university curricula for Rehabilitation Counselors Education programs were examined to determine whether these educational institutions offered a minimum of 9-12 credits hours of African American cultural sensitivity courses. Nine to twelve credit hours were utilized to determine cultural competency in pre-service rehabilitation education curricula. The educational institutions were represented by the colleges and the universities throughout the country. These colleges and universities were representative of educational institutions across the country that offer Rehabilitation Counselor Education programs. The Rehabilitation Services Administration has the states organized into ten federal regions. The RSA data was also evaluated to determine whether one specific region of the country was teaching more cultural sensitive courses specific to African Americans than another region. It was concluded that out of the 55 colleges and universities only ten or 18.2% offered a minimum of one-half to three credit hours of cultural sensitivity coursework specific to African Americans. Only one university (1.8%) offered a minimum of 9-12 credit hours to meet cultural sensitivity competency. There were no specific findings regarding whether one region offered more African American cultural sensitive courses than another region, since only one university met the criteria of cultural competency. The curricula evaluation revealed that rehabilitation counselor education programs are significantly lacking in offering courses on African American culture. Recommendations were made for these programs to add cultural sensitivity courses to their curricula. Textbooks and strategies for incorportating multicultural training in core rehabilitation courses also were recommended.