For many educators, self-awareness for crosscultural practice means critical consciousness.
Students are told that they must examine their own
cultural backgrounds from a critical perspective—
in short, they must admit and confront their racist,
sexist, classist, and heterosexist thoughts and
beliefs. In addition to reflecting on these thoughts
in private, students are frequently required to
confess them openly in the classroom. As a
pedagogical exercise, this approach to critical
consciousness has little empirical support,
displaces the goal of self-awareness from good
practice to painful confession, and denies students
the rights they are told they must grant their
clients