Summary

The demography of the Danish population has changed the past 30-35 years due to the arrival of an increasing number of immigrants and refugees. This has meant a shift from Danish monoculture to a more diverse multiculture. These demographic changes mean that we are facing a new situation with many nationalities on their way through the school system as well as into the labour market. These people need counselling. Many educational and vocational counsellors may, however, find themselves in a situation where they do not have any experience with newly arrived immigrant and refugee groups as they primarily have experience with and knowledge about how to counsel people from their own Danish culture.

The educational and vocational counsellors would like to be able to counsel with insight and understanding, but in the words of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, there is a dilemma:

"For in truth to be able to help another person, I must understand more than him - but nevertheless first and foremost also understand what he understands. If I do not, then my superior knowledge does not help him at all."

Some educational and vocational counsellors do not master this kind of counselling for the simple reason that they do not understand or have insight into the student's culture. Many of the difficulties described may be remedied with information and insight into different cultures. However, this is not enough.

This publication focuses on the multicultural counselling meeting. We will demonstrate that the student as well as the vocational counsellor sees the counselling through cultural spectacles. It is therefore vital that the vocational counsellor makes a conscious effort to gain insight into other cultures and to understand his or her own culture.

This means that the vocational counsellor must train and practice at becoming a culturally reflective vocational counsellor.

The cultural reflections must deal with the cultures that come into play during the counselling session, and this applies to the culture of the student seeking advice as well as that of the vocational counsellor. The vocational counsellor as an active cultural co-player has not attracted much attention in the Danish counselling tradition due to the Danish monoculture. As Denmark is at the brink of becoming a multicultural society, the demand for research and method development is increasing in relation to multicultural counselling.

As our theoretical starting point we have used "A Theory of Multicultural Counselling and Therapy" by Wing Sue, Ivey and Pedersen, because this theory brings into focus the cultural part of counselling. The theory divides the work with strengthening the vocational counsellor's cultural competencies into three levels, i.e. attitudes, knowledge and skills, which we find is a very usable division in relation to the work with strengthening the educational and vocational counsellor's competencies in this important area.

The publication proposes how to work with knowledge about other cultures - for instance through Geert Hofstede's overall description and categorisation of cultural phenomena. There are examples of exercises and methods that can reinforce and train the counsellor's cultural self-insight, and different new counselling methods are discussed in relation to the cultural dimension.

The intention is to make a proposal on the development of a culturally reflective competency, where the counsellor works with acquiring knowledge about different cultures, gains insight into his or her own culture and culturally dependent behaviour and develops his or her own methodical counselling skills.

Denne side indgår i publikationen "Multikulturel vejledning" som summary
© Undervisningsministeriet 2002