The purpose of this study was to measure the current levels of multiculturalism among seminarians at one Christian seminary and to compare and contrast the results of the seminarians' mean scores with a similar study on school principals in the state of Nebraska.
Subjects included on-campus students taking core courses at one Christian seminary during the spring term of the 1996-97 school year. Fifty-seven of the one hundred and twenty students in these classes completed the survey questionnaire and answered the accompanying demographic questions. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, t-test, correlational analysis (Pearson's r), and analysis of variance (ANOVA).
The results of the survey showed that the seminarians are functioning at a relatively high level of multicultural development. The seminarians' mean scores ranked at the third level of the Multicultural Development Scale in the areas of Personal Attitude, Personal Behavior, Professional Behavior and on the Composite score. One of the key characteristics of this construct level is a self-motivated interest in diversity issues that is not mandated by an outside force. Only in the area of Life Experience did the seminarians rank at the second level on the Multicultural Development Scale.
A comparison of the seminarians with Nebraska school principals revealed both significant similarities and differences. Mean scores on the Personal Multicultural Assessment instrument placed the two groups at exactly the same levels on the Multicultural Development Scale for all of the subscales and the composite score. The demographic data indicated that the school principals were older, more highly educated and receiving higher incomes than the seminarians. Both groups were almost exclusively Caucasian. The seminarians were evenly divided between males and females while the principals were almost exclusively male.
