Challenges In Implementing Intercultural Counselling In Indonesian Educational Contexts: University Students’ Perceptions

Abstract

The existence of cultural diversity is an undeniable fact of life that influences individual behaviour and all human activities, including counselling. Therefore, it is vitally crucial to examine the prevailing culture when performing counselling. The present study adopts a qualitative research strategy using data processing that provides descriptive data, including interviews and observations, to evaluate the problems associated with the application of intercultural counselling in the Indonesian educational system. Specifically, this article investigates the perceptions of university students about cultural awareness and intercultural counselling. A random sampling technique was used to pick 88 university students currently enrolled at various Indonesian universities as the study's samples. The three phases of data analysis are data reduction, data display, and data verification. According to the study's findings, there were primarily three challenges: (1) cultural-based issues in intercultural counselling; (2) communication-based issues in intercultural counselling; and (3) linguistic-based issues in intercultural counselling.