Faith’s Associations With Multiculturalism and Social Justice Within Applied Graduate Programs in the United States

We assessed religious belief salience and its association across multicultural competencies, social justice, and faith maturity within a graduate trainee population to understand its impact on therapeutic implications. Participants (N = 227) were recruited through training directors of accredited American Psychological Association, Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs, and Masters in Psychology and Counseling Accreditation Council programs. The Religious Belief Salience Scale (Blaine & Crocker, 1995), Multicultural Counseling Knowledge and Awareness Scale (Ponterotto et al., 2002), Social Justice Scale (SJS; Torres-Harding et al., 2012), and Horizontal Subscale of the Faith Maturity Scale (Benson et al., 1993) all reached acceptable alpha and omega levels. Using regression procedures, religiosity was found to be significantly related with Multicultural Counseling Knowledge and Awareness Scale awareness (p <.001, R² =.08), SJS attitudes (p <.001, R² =.06), SJS perceived behavioral control (p =.003, R² =.04), and SJS intentions (p <.001, R² =.06). However, the results indicated little practical significance. Religiosity was, also, found to not be significantly related to faith maturity (p =.414), yielding no practical significance. Findings suggest further research is needed to observe the murkiness across religiosity, social behavior, and prejudice.