Exploring Counseling Students’ Perceptions of Muslim-Americans
Research suggests that having mental health needs and identifying as Muslim act as double stressors since some Muslims mistrust mental health providers out of fear of discrimination. In the United States, counseling agencies are seeing a steady increase in clients who identify as Muslim and who are...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2025
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| In: |
Counseling and values
Year: 2025, Volume: 70, Issue: 2, Pages: 199-232 |
| Further subjects: | B
Muslims
B Multiculturalism B Religion and spirituality B counselor education B counseling competencies B Counseling B Islamophobia B cacrep B aservic |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Research suggests that having mental health needs and identifying as Muslim act as double stressors since some Muslims mistrust mental health providers out of fear of discrimination. In the United States, counseling agencies are seeing a steady increase in clients who identify as Muslim and who are impacted by the daily stressors of being members of a marginalized and violently targeted religious group. Furthermore, the Association for the Spiritual, Ethical, and Religious Values in Counseling (aservic), a division of the American Counseling Association (aca), was formed in recognition of the importance and multicultural nature of a client’s religious and spiritual (rs) beliefs and practices. However, research suggests that most of the non-Muslim American population have negative perceptions of Muslims. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to explore the perspectives and experiences toward cultural competency with Muslim clients of three counseling students in a cacrep program in a public university in the American Midwest. This study employed sociocultural theory informed by a social dominance lens. The data for this study were collected and triangulated using individual interviews, a focus group, and the document analysis of a syllabus from a multicultural counseling course. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis, which yielded three major findings: (a) despite minimal rs course content, participants felt their cacrep program increased their multicultural awareness, (b) the media was the formative source of information on Islam and Muslims, and (c) changing environmental contexts allowed for alternate sources of information on Islam and Muslims. Conclusions from the findings and recommendations for future research are provided. |
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| ISSN: | 2161-007X |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Counseling and values
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/2161007x-bja10031 |
