Cultural Competence as an Ethical Requirement: Introducing a New Educational Model Lauren Rogers-Sirin Drew University Selcuk R. Sirin New York University Demographic data show a trend toward increasing racial and ethnic diversity among students in public schools, but the teaching population is projected to remain largely White and female. Without proper training, teachers will be ill equipped to meet the educational needs of these diverse students and run the risk of unwittingly perpetuating prevalent stereotypes and discriminatory practices about certain racial and ethnic groups. This preliminary study offers a theoretically driven model for training, the Racial and Ethical Sensitivity Training KIT (REST-KIT), which is designed to (a) increase preservice teachers’ ability to recognize ethical dilemmas related to intoler- ance in schools and (b) provide preservice teachers with techniques and skills for handling these dilemmas. The REST-KIT is unique in that it ties cultural competence to ethical principles based on professional codes of ethics accepted by school profes- sions and emphasizes that cultural competence is a professional requirement, not a personal choice. Pre- and posttests were given to ascertain the program’s effectiveness. Both a self-report and a behavior-based measure indicated that participants showed more cultural competence after completing the workshop. Implications and directions for future research are discussed. Keywords: racial and ethical sensitivity training, multicultural, cultural competence, professional ethics, Quick-REST In today’s public schools, the number of ra- cial and ethnic minority students is on the rise (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2004), and there is a growing recognition that teachers and other school professionals need training to help them adequately meet the needs of diverse students. According to the U.S. Department of Education (2007), more than 4 out of 10 public school students are racial and ethnic minorities. In ad- dition, in 2000 2 out of 5 children in the United States came from racial and ethnic minority families, immigrant families, or both, and by the year 2035 the numbers will be close to 50% (Hernandez, 2004). However, as the student body has gotten more diverse, the makeup of teaching professionals has stayed roughly the same: About 9 out of every 10 teachers are White and from nonimmigrant backgrounds (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2007). It is clear from these trends that in the coming years many, if not most, students will experience a cultural mismatch with their teacher(s) as they go through the school system. Research has demonstrated that teacher ex- pectations are influenced by cultural mismatch in schools, whether based on race, socioeco- nomic status, or ethnicity, and can lead to low- ered expectations for disadvantaged students or students from minority racial and ethnic groups (Delpit, 1995; Hauser-Cram, Sirin, & Stipeck, 2003). Delpit (1995) asserted that when signif- icant differences exist between a student’s home Lauren Rogers-Sirin, Center for Counseling and Psycho- logical Services, Drew University; Selcuk R. Sirin, Depart- ment of Applied Psychology, New York University. The development of the REST-KIT was funded by a grant from the Petrie Foundation to New York University (Partnership for Teaching Excellence). We also thank Joe McDonald, Frank Pignatosi, Brian Collins, and Kadidja Diallo for their support of this project. The REST-KIT is available through Lauren Rogers-Sirin and Selcuk R. Sirin (sirins@nyu.edu). For more information on the REST materials, please visit our Web page, http:// homepages.nyu.edu/ss3797/projects/rest.html Correspondence concerning this article should be ad- dressed to Lauren Rogers-Sirin, Center for Counseling and Psychological Services, Drew University, Sycamore Cot- tage, 36 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ 07940. E-mail: lrogerss@drew.edu Journal of Diversity in Higher Education © 2009 National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education 2009, Vol. 2, No. 1, 19 –29 1938-8926/09/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0013762 19