How Visible Minority Students Cope with Supervision Stress

Abstract

In the stress and coping literature, little attention has been paid to supervision stress experienced by visible minority students, even though it is quite a common and stressful phenomenon. About 26% of psychology students in the American Psychological Association (APA) accredited programs identify themselves as racial or ethnic minorities. In addition, many of the racial or ethnic minorities are foreign students who have been uprooted from their own cultures. Given the presence of a large number of ethnic minority students in North America, how they cope with supervision stress is a phenomenon deserving research attention. The present study is part of a larger research project on cross-cultural supervision. I decided to focus on visible minorities, because their physical attributes make them easy targets for prejudice and discrimination. Supervision stress cannot be simply treated as a case of interpersonal conflict, because of the vast power differential. Similarly, it cannot be treated as a daily hassle, because of the intense emotional impact and the potential harm to the supervisee's physical health and future career--the stakes cannot be higher from the perspective of students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (chapter)