Discussion Questions (General)

1. What opportunities do you see for counselors to have an influence on campus internationalization, to help foster the integration of international students in the educational institution and in the local community?
2. What are the cultural assumptions that underpin the theoretical approaches that you use in your counseling? How can you make sure that those assumptions are appropriate for the worldviews of your clients?
3. What competencies would help you to increase inclusive cultural empathy for counseling international students?
4. Given the information on Ling provided in this chapter, as Ling’s counselor, how would you attempt to strengthen the working alliance by helping her to surface some of her “culture teachers” (Pedersen et al., 2008) and their influences on her decisions and experiences?
5. What ethical issues might surface in the referral of international students from student advisers or academic faculty, and how might you manage those issues?
6. How would you evaluate the impacts of services on international students, including direct counseling, outreach activities, and psychoeducational approaches aimed at health promotion?
7. Given the information on Mohammed provided in this chapter, what hypotheses do you make regarding his reluctance to focus on his home country? What do these hypotheses imply about the similarities or differences between your worldview and Mohammed’s?