Who Is Ready to Counsel Refugees? Latent Profiles of Prejudice,Labeling,and Counseling Attitudes Among Turkish Counselor Candidates: A Mixture SEM Study

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the associations among Turkish counseling students’ attitudes toward providing psychological counseling to refugees, their multicultural counseling competencies, prejudice against asylum seekers, and tendencies toward labeling refugees. The study group consisted of 362 participants (246 females [68.0%], 116 males [32.0%]) aged 17 to 26 (M = 21.1, SD = 1.32). Data were analyzed using Mixture Structural Equation Modeling (MSEM), which simultaneously estimated structural relationships among the variables and identified latent subgroups. Results indicated that prejudice against asylum seekers and multicultural counseling competencies were directly associated with attitudes toward giving psychological counseling. Prejudice against asylum seekers and labeling of refugees were directly associated with multicultural counseling competencies, and prejudice against asylum seekers was also directly related to labeling refugees. Indirect associations were also found, including links from prejudice to attitudes via labeling and multicultural counseling competencies. The latent profile component of the MSEM distinguished four subgroups: “Empathetic and Competent Advocates,” “Prejudiced and Disengaged Counselors,” “Reluctant Helpers,” and “Well-Intentioned but Developing.” These findings offer preliminary, education-focused insights into the interplay between prejudice, multicultural counseling competencies, refugee labeling, and attitudes toward psychological counseling among Turkish counseling students, and suggest that targeted counselor-education strategies may help reduce prejudice, strengthen multicultural competencies, and improve attitudes toward working with asylum seekers and refugees.