Twenty-Five Years of the Multicultural School Consultation Model: An Exploration of Cultural and Intersectional Identities in the Triad

Over the last 25 years, school psychology has made improvements in developing and implementing more culturally responsive school-based practices through updated ethical guidelines, training curricula, and an increase in peer-reviewed publications focusing on social justice. We sought to explore how researchers have addressed Ingraham’s call to action in 2000 for school-based consultation research to focus on how to effectively support culturally and linguistically diverse students. Through a systematic literature review using a consensual qualitative approach, we coded 17 articles that meaningfully cited Ingraham’s seminal article on the Multicultural School Consultation (MSC) Framework. Focusing on Component 3 of the MSC framework, Cultural Variations in the Consultation Constellation, we found that in the past 25 years, school psychology has answered the call as it relates to considerations of diversity in scholarly works, cultural context within consultation, issues related to the application of consultation practices within schools, and implications for future empirical research. However, scholarship is still lacking a clear, consistent method for measuring the saliency of cultural identities in the consultation triad (i.e. consultant, consultee, and client) and how this saliency affects consultation practice, especially as this influence relates to intersectionality. We present our systematic literature review findings and provide an updated call to action for school-based consultation researchers to focus on how incorporating intersecting identities can enhance the use of the MSC framework.