Currere: a multicultural & social awareness, responsiveness, & advocacy lesson for counselor education

Abstract

Counselor educators are charged with helping students develop skills in multicultural and social awareness, responsiveness, and advocacy (MSARA), but research surrounding the best pedagogical approach for this instruction is lacking. Currre is a reflective tool that, when used as instruction, can help students improve their multicultural awareness, enter complicated conversations about race, and begin to understand positionality in the curriculum in relation to identity and the socio-cultural realities that exist. The currere model also makes formative assessment of students available to instructors, and self-assessments to students by way of observing the developmental stages of knowing in currere artifacts and discussions. Assessment skills for counselors through this reflective practice offer ongoing growth in personal awareness, and professional competency as social and cultural factors influence the therapeutic relationship.