Date of Award

5-2010

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Department

Graduate Department of Clinical Psychology

Abstract

The demographics of the United States continue to change, and the ethnical and cultural landscape changes along with it. The American Psychological Association (APA) has begun to address these issues within the field of psychology. These efforts are being made to bring understanding to ethnic identity formation, explore the dangers of ignoring ethnic differences (i.e., Sue, 2004; "invisibility of Whiteness"), and to highlight the necessity to develop views with diverse perspectives. This in part due to the recognition that there remain facets of our nation that remain generally ethnically homogenous (i.e., White). The university is one such place, and George Fox University (GFU), along with many universities, has begun implementing programs (i.e., Act Six) to promote multicultural diversity and awareness on their campuses. These changes are not without their challenges and conflicts, and current difficulties on campus reflect this. However, Tori and Ducker (2004) suggest that in order to understand and sustain multicultural efforts, a critical role of institutional change lay in the university faculty with their attitudes (i.e., implicit and explicit attitudes) about diversity playing an important part. Also, other key issues include institutional and administrative efforts as a basis for implementation of these programs (Resnick, 2006; Smith, 2005). The purpose of this study was systematically replicate previous research at GFU (i.e., Anderson & Roid, 1999), to measure whether there was an improvement in many multicultural issues using longitudinal data. Overtime there were demographic variables that suggest multiple ways to understanding multicultural issues. The applicability and accuracy of the ICFS as a tool for multicultural longitudinal evaluation was also discussed as a reliable measure. And finally, our findings provide support for the implementation and development of policies in higher education.

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