RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN INSITUTIONAL TYPE, PERCEIVED EXPERIENCES OF RACIAL AND ETHNIC MICROAGGRESSIONS, MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING COURSE EXPERIENCE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE ADVOCACY ORIENTION AMONG COUNSELORS IN TRAINING AND PROFESSIONALS

The manifestations of institutional and interpersonal racism have been linked to lower recruitment, retention and matriculation rates among ethnic minority students in predominantly white institutions (Harper, 2012). Those who experience racial and ethnic microaggressions have been impacted in numerous deleterious ways. Physical, mental, emotional and political outcomes have been examined in prior research (McGee & Stovall, 2016; Smith, Allen & Danley, 2007; Sue, 2010; ). In counselor training programs, specific coursework in multicultural education introduces counselors to the foundational aspects of the Multicultural and Social Justice Advocacy Competencies (Ratts et al, 2016) . Using Critical Race theory as a framework, a non-experimental, correlational survey design was used to explore the relationship between institutional type, perceived experiences of school-based racial and ethnic microaggressions, racialized experiences in multicultural coursework and social justice advocacy orientation among counseling students and professionals (N= 346). A standard multiple regression indicated a significant relationship between the school-based racial and ethnic microaggressions and racialized experience in multicultural coursework with social justice advocacy orientation. However, there was no significant relationship with social justice advocacy orientation and institutional type. Results from an independent sample t- test indicated there were significant differences between institutional type in experiences with school-based racial and ethnic microaggressions and racialized experience in multicultural counseling coursework. There however, was no significant difference between institutional type with regard to the social justice advocacy orientation of participants in this study.