This study aims to examine the level of cultural competence among university students majoring in social work, to verify the influence of empathy and multicultural acceptance on cultural competence, and to identify the causal relationships among these variables. The ultimate goal is to provide foundational data for the development of educational programs that can enhance the cultural competence of social work majors. For this purpose, data from 237 freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior students enrolled in six four-year universities located in the Daegu and Gyeongbuk regions were used for the final analysis. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 21.0. The main findings are as follows. First, empathy was found to have a significant effect on both multicultural acceptance and cultural competence. Second, multicultural acceptance showed a significant influence on cultural competence. Third, multicultural acceptance was confirmed to have a statistically significant mediating effect on the relationship between empathy and cultural competence. Based on these findings, the study discusses implications for designing educational programs aimed at strengthening the cultural competence of social work students. Additionally, directions for future research are proposed in light of the study’s limitations.
Lee et al. (Thu,) studied this question.