This textbook applies cultural psychology and cultural competency to the challenges present in diverse Christian colleges and churches. Students are challenged to implement strategies to advance their cultural competence at the individual, interpersonal, and organizational levels. The text reviews the current literature base in the fields of multicultural psychology and cultural competence and integrates the material with Christian faith, providing an enriched basis for readers to be motivated to internalize and apply the material. Additionally, the text utilizes recent student narratives to illustrate the material. This is the only faith-integrated multicultural psychology book on the market, focusing on applying multicultural psychology and cultural competency to Christian communities, both on university campuses and churches.

The aims pursued in this book are quite modest. The text is not an introduction in the traditional sense to any psychological subdiscipline or field of application, nor does it present anything essentially new. Rather, it shows ‘work in progress’, as it attempts to contribute to an integration of two differently structured, but already existing fields within psychology. In order to explain this, it is probably best to say a few words about how the book came into being and about what it hopes to achieve. As a project, the volume owes very much to others. While lecturing in places ranging from South Africa to Canada and from California through European co- tries to Korea, colleagues have often urged me to come up with a volume on ‘c- tural psychology of religion’. For reasons that should become clear in the text, I feel uncomfortable with such a demand. To my understanding, there exists no single cultural psychology of religion. Rather, there are ever expanding numbers of div- gent types of psychologies, some of which are applied to understanding religious aspects of human lives or to researching specific religious phenomena, while others are not. Within this heterogeneous field that is, correctly or not, still designated as ‘psychology’, there are also many approaches that are sometimes referred to as ‘cultural psychology’ or as ‘culturally sensitive psychologies’. It would be wor- while applying many of these to research on religious phenomena, but at present not too many are in fact so applied.

How is it that cultures come into existence at all? How do cultures develop particular customs and characteristics rather than others? How do cultures persist and change over time? Most previous attempts to address these questions have been descriptive and historical. The purpose of this book is to provide answers that are explanatory, predictive, and relevant to the emergence and continuing evolution of cultures past, present, and future. Most other investigations into "cultural psychology" have focused on the impact that culture has on the psychology of the individual. The focus of this book is the reverse. The authors show how questions about the origins and evolution of culture can be fruitfully answered through rigorous and creative examination of fundamental characteristics of human cognition, motivation, and social interaction. They review recent theory and research that, in many different ways, points to the influence of basic psychological processes on the collective structures that define cultures. These processes operate in all sorts of different populations, ranging from very small interacting groups to grand-scale masses of people occupying the same demographic or geographic category. The cultural effects--often unintended--of individuals' thoughts and actions are demonstrated in a wide variety of customs, ritualized practices, and shared mythologies: for example, religious beliefs, moral standards, rules for the allocation of resources, norms for the acceptable expression of aggression, gender stereotypes, and scientific values. The Psychological Foundations of Culture reveals that the consequences of psychological processes resonate well beyond the disciplinary constraints of psychology. By taking a psychological approach to questions usually addressed by anthropologists, sociologists, and other social scientists, it suggests that psychological research into the foundations of culture is a useful--perhaps even necessary--complement to other forms of inquiry.

Completely updated, the most widely used and critically acclaimed text on multicultural counseling, Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice, Fifth Edition offers students and professionals essential and thought-provoking material on the theory, research, and practice of multicultural counseling. Authors Derald Wing Sue and David Sue—pioneers in this field—define and analyze the meaning of diversity and multiculturalism and include coverage of racial/ethnic minority groups as well as multiracial individuals, women, gays and lesbians, the elderly, and those with disabilities. The Fifth Edition of this classic resource introduces new research and concepts, discusses future directions in the field, and includes updated references. New and important highlights include: Opening personal narratives in Chapter 1 that present poignant journeys in cultural competence Cutting-edge material related to the most recent research, theoretical formulations, and practice implications Discussion of unconscious and subtle manifestations of racial, gender, and sexual orientation bias and discriminationknown as microaggressions Coverage of social justice counseling Content on minority group therapists Attention to counseling and special circumstances involving racial/ethnic populations With its unique conceptual framework for multicultural therapy, Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice, Fifth Edition remains the best source of real-world counseling preparation for students as well as the most enlightened, influential guide for professionals.

In this embodied, practical approach to the integration of psychology and faith, students are guided through the process of constructing a culturally informed, organic model of integration that works for them and for justice in our churches, communities, and world, with particular attention to the marginalized and oppressed.

The goal of cultural psychology is to explain the ways in which human cultural constructions -- for example, rituals, stereotypes, and meanings -- organize and direct human acting, feeling, and thinking in different social contexts. A rapidly growing, international field of scholarship, cultural psychology is ready for an interdisciplinary, primary resource. Linking psychology, anthropology, sociology, archaeology, and history, The Oxford Handbook of Culture and Psychology is the quintessential volume that unites the variable perspectives from these disciplines. Comprised of over fifty contributed chapters, this book provides a necessary, comprehensive overview of contemporary cultural psychology. Bridging psychological, sociological, and anthropological perspectives, one will find in this handbook: - A concise history of psychology that includes valuable resources for innovation in psychology in general and cultural psychology in particular - Interdisciplinary chapters including insights into cultural anthropology, cross-cultural psychology, culture and conceptions of the self, and semiotics and cultural connections - Close, conceptual links with contemporary biological sciences, especially developmental biology, and with other social sciences - A section detailing potential methodological innovations for cultural psychology By comparing cultures and the (often differing) human psychological functions occuring within them, The Oxford Handbook of Culture and Psychology is the ideal resource for making sense of complex and varied human phenomena.