Multicultural education in the mental health professions: A meta-analytic review

The American Psychological Association and many other professional mental health organizations require graduate programs to provide education in multicultural issues. However, the effectiveness of multicultural education has been debated in the literature over the past several years. The overall purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of multicultural education using meta-analytic methodologies. Findings revealed that multicultural education interventions were typically associated with positive outcomes across a wide variety of participant and study characteristics. Multicultural education interventions that were explicitly based on theory and research yielded outcomes nearly twice as beneficial as those that were not. Priorities for future inquiry are enumerated, and increased institutional support for multicultural education initiatives is solicited.