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When APA President Fox appointed the Commission, he identified six major issues for the
Commission to address. At its initial meeting, CEMRRAT reviewed these issues and accepted
them as charges to the Commission.
The following constitute the Commission's summary response to those charges.
Charge #1: Review and synthesize existing data regarding ethnic minority recruitment,
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retention and graduation, and education and training in psychology.
The demographic context
Data on the current status of ethnic minorities in psychology are most meaningful when viewed
against historical and demographic contexts. The U. S. Census Bureau estimates that around the
year 2050, ethnic minorities will comprise more than 50 percent of the nation's population. In
consideration of the nation's emerging majority of color, the historic calls of psychologists of
color for increased participation and representation in the discipline have become an imperative.
The context of our future dictates that psychology must devise strategies for ensuring there is a
cadre of psychologists of color who will provide significant leadership for not only the delivery of
behavioral and psychological services and the conduct of research in communities of color, but
also for the significant training effort that will be required if all of the nation's psychologists are to possess some
minimal multicultural competence. Failure to pursue such strategies is synonymous with the
abandonment of future markets for practice, research, and education and training in psychology.
Major findings related to education and training
A more detailed presentation of findings along with appropriate citations are provided in the Final
Report's chapter on "Imperatives for Action" in the subsection on "The Current Status."
Among the nation's accredited doctoral clinical, counseling, and school psychology training
programs,2 the number of required and elective courses on multicultural issues has increased over
the last 10 years. However, an estimated 58% of accredited counseling programs and an estimated
74% of accredited clinical programs still do not require even one minority-focused content course
for the doctoral degree.
Approximately 40% of accredited doctoral clinical and counseling psychology programs do not
use off-campus clinical field placements serving ethnic minority populations.
More than 50% of clinical and counseling psychology programs have no faculty conducting
research on ethnic minority mental health issues.
Studies of multicultural curricular and training content have focused exclusively on health
provider programs (e. g., clinical, counseling, and school psychology) and not on scientific and
applied research training program areas such as developmental, social and personality,
educational, industrial and organizational, health, and experimental psychology. Thus, little is
known about the preparation of behavioral scientists for research and intervention with
multicultural populations. Related research is needed.
There are few or no research or education and training materials on providing psychological
services to linguistically diverse populations through use of languages other than English.
Research is needed on the effectiveness of various models and strategies for integrating
multicultural content into existing curricula.
Major findings related to faculty recruitment and retention
Ethnic minorities are dramatically underrepresented among psychology faculty in community
colleges, 4-year colleges, and graduate training programs in psychology. For example, only 7% of
full-time faculty in graduate departments of psychology, and 9% of full-time (4-year)
undergraduate department faculty are ethnic minority. Among graduate psychology faculty in
health service provider subfields, 10.3% of faculty are ethnic minorities; but in non-health service
provider subfields (i. e., scientific areas of psychology), only 6.8% of faculty are ethnic minorities.
Partly because of the underrepresentation of ethnic minority faculty in psychology, the
development of multicultural content in psychology curricula and research has been limited. This
limited multicultural training in turn affects the ability of institutions to attract ethnic minority
undergraduate and graduate students.
Major findings related to student recruitment, retention, and graduation
Ethnic minority students continue to graduate from high school at a lower rate than White
students.
Ethnic minority representation among persons enrolled in college is almost the same as their
representation in the general population. In 1993, students of color comprised 24.0% of the
nation's undergraduate enrollment.
The first major underrepresentation of ethnic minorities in psychology's educational pipeline
occurs at the point of college graduation. In 1993, ethnic minority recipients of the bachelor
degree in psychology comprised 16.2% of all such recipients.
In 1991, 12% of all graduate students in psychology (including part-time students) were persons
of color, as were 13% of all full-time graduate students in psychology.
The award of the master's degree is associated with another constriction in psychology's
ethnic minority pipeline. In 1993, ethnic minority recipients of the master's degree in psychology
comprised 11.6% of all recipients of such degrees.
At the doctoral level, the small number of minority doctoral graduates foretells a severe limitation on the racial/cultural diversity of the pool of academicians, service providers, and
scientists in psychology. Between 1975 and 1993, a total of 3,833 ethnic minorities were awarded
a doctorate in psychology, representing 7.6% of all such doctorates awarded during that period.
In 1993, minority recipients of doctorates in psychology numbered 344 and comprised 9.4% of all
recipients of such degrees.
1CEMRRAT will utilize as its operating definition of ethnic minorities: African American/Black, Asian American/Pacific Islander, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Hispanic/Latino(a). This definition involves consideration and sensitivity to the diversity within ethnic minority groups to include, but not limit to, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and persons of mixed ethnicity/race.
2The term 'program' is used throughout this report to characterize any and all psychology training that occurs within schools of psychology, departments of psychology, and psychology programs set in units such as schools of education and medical school campuses.
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