Psychology Commons^™

Initial Development And Validation Of The Rural Competency Scale, Cassandra Gail Pusateri

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

Rurality is a term that can be used to describe rural residency and the cultural characteristics of rural individuals and areas. The counseling profession has increased its attention to culture with the development of the multicultural counseling competencies (Sue, Arredondo, & McDavis, 1992) and assessments designed to measure competency levels for providing services to diverse clientele (e.g., Kim, Cartwright, Asay, & D'Andrea, 2003; LaFromboise, Coleman, & Hernandez, 1991; Ponterotto, Gretchen, Utsey, Rieger, & Austin, 2002; Sodowsky, Taffe, Gutkin, & Wise, 1994). However, the commonly used definitions of culture as well as the instruments available to measure multicultural counseling competence do …