Increasing ethnic and cultural diversity worldwide and especially in Australia requires that psychologists and counsellors cultivate the knowhow to interact and work effectively with clients and stakeholders in cross-cultural contexts. This study aimed to identify and compare themes regarding challenging intercultural social scenarios experienced by supervising, practising and intern psychologists. Transcripts from five focus groups were open-coded on four occasions and the final themes compared with the EXCELL (Excellence in Cultural Experiential Learning and Leadership) program's six key sociocultural competencies (Mak, Westwood, Barker, & Ishiyama, 1998). We found that many challenges reported by psychologists (regardless of their qualifications) were related to difficulties — for psychologists and clients — in executing one or more of key sociocultural competencies: seeking help or information, participating in a group, making social contact, giving feedback, refusing a request, and expressing disagreement. We also identified barriers to cultural competence in therapeutic relationships, including cultural identity issues, needing to address difficulties in intimate relationships, cultural variation in values/beliefs/social norms, mismatched expectations, psychologists’ perceived deficit in intercultural training, and challenges in self-reflection. Based on our findings, we propose a model of culturally competent counselling practice and discuss implications for counsellor and psychologist training, and for future research.

Waldrip and Fisher (2000) proposed seven culturally relevant factors that are salient in the educational setting (gender equity, collaboration, competition, deference, modelling, teacher authority, congruence). In relation to these factors, the present study examined differences and congruencies in factor structure (i.e., differences of kind) and mean scores (i.e., differences of degree) among secondary school students in Australia, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia. The Cultural Learning Environment Questionnaire (CLEQ; Waldrip & Fisher, 2000) was administered to 920 students (n = 230 for each country, with boys and girls equally represented; mean age = 16 years). Factor analyses showed congruencies across the four samples on five factors. Interestingly, items pertaining to students' deference to and modelling of teachers and peers grouped into one factor for the Australian sample, but separated into two factors (peers and teacher) for the South-East Asian samples. In terms of mean scores on each factor, Australian students were higher than the Singaporean, Filipino and Indonesian students in their inclination to challenge or disagree with the teacher. On the other hand, the three groups of South-East Asian students scored higher than the Australian students in their preferences for collaboration and conformity in the classroom. Implications for counselling relevant to multicultural classroom and school contexts were discussed.