A House Divided: Guidance and Counseling in 20th-Century America

Historical analysis of guidance and counseling within American public education reveals a house divided by diversity and contradictions.     

On Borrowing Guidance Theory and Practice: Some Observations of an American Participant in the British Guidance Movement

Possible factors contributing to the difficulties experienced by the British guidance movement are discussed. Special attention is given to the heavy reliance on American ideas concerning counseling theory and practice.     

Counseling: a new priority in Latin America

Despite burgeoning enthusiasm in Latin American countries for educational guidance and vocational counseling, Latin American efforts in these areas are not often mentioned in the U.S. professional literature. This brief survey with an annotated bibliography is an effort to inform counselors about some of the recent developments in Latin America that relate to their profession. The article explains some of the underlying social, cultural, and educational conditions that have helped shape recent trends, and the authors sketch the increasing use of innovative apprenticeship training and student loan programs, which have greatly increased demands for the provision of guidance services in recent years. Despite the problem of underprofessionalization, the field of vocational guidance and counseling is growing in importance in the Latin American countries.     

The Black Church,Values, and Secular Counseling: Implications for Counselor Education and Practice

There has been a recent increase in the amount of attention given in the counseling literature to addressing clients’ religion and spirituality. However, Black American churchgoers are rarely the target population in the discourse, and little is known about how the Black church shapes their views. This article provides information on values of the Black church and the church's influence on Black American churchgoers regarding secular counseling. Implications for counselor education and practice are discussed.     

Guidance of the College-Bound

This paper discusses the paradox which exists between counselor education and counselor practice as related to counseling and guidance of the college-bound. Theory and research about higher education, the school counselor mandate concept, and implications for strengthening counselor education are explored. The position is taken that the gap between counselor education and counselor practice in guidance services for the college-bound is too great but that correctives exist which must be examined and implemented.     

History,Current Status,and Future Prospects of Counseling in South Korea

Although the counseling profession was introduced to South Korea in the 1950s by American delegates of education, counseling has been only lately recognized as a specialized field that requires distinctive knowledge and skills. In this article, the authors describe the history and the current status of counseling in South Korea and then discuss challenges and future prospects.     

School psychology in Thailand

This report reviews the role of school psychologists in Thailand, and describes the Thai system of education, school guidance and counseling services, and administration and training facilities, examines psychology's contribution to Thai society in the schools, and explores practical problems and new possibilities.     

A Test of Group Counseling

High school students were counseled in groups designed around either a “traditional” or an “accelerated interaction” format The efficiency of each approach in achieving the goals of guidance in education was studied. Group counseling appeared to be a useful counseling tool if organized on a weekly basis.     

Effects of Anxiety on Novice Genetic Counseling Students’ Experience of Supervised Clinical Rotations

Supervised clinical experiences with patients comprise a critical component of genetic counseling student education. Previous research has found genetic counseling students tend to be more anxiety prone than the general population, and anxiety related to supervision has been found in genetic counseling and related fields. The present study investigated how anxiety affects the experience of supervision for genetic counseling students. Second year genetic counseling students were invited to participate through email invitations distributed via training directors of the 33 programs accredited at the time of the study by the American Board of Genetic Counseling. An initial online survey contained the trait scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory to estimate anxiety proneness in this population and an invitation to participate in a 45-minute semi-structured phone interview focusing on students’ experiences of supervision during their clinical rotations. High and low trait anxiety groups were created using STAI scores, and the groups’ interview responses were compared using consensual qualitative research methodology (CQR; Hill 2012). The high anxiety group was more likely to describe problematic supervisory relationships, appreciate the supervisor’s ability to help them when they get stuck in sessions, and feel their anxiety had a negative effect on their performance in general and in supervision. Common themes included supervisors’ balancing support and guidance, the importance of feedback, ego-centric responses, and supervisors as focal points. The results of the present study are largely consistent with current literature. Further research findings and research, practice, and training recommendations are provided.     

Preparing Culturally Effective Counselors

The preparation of culturally effective counselors is a familiar topic in the counseling literature. Counselor educators and practitioners have regularly discussed cultural barriers in the counseling process and have proposed models for working more effectively with multicultural populations. Still, there is no counselor education program in the United States that trains students in the special problems and advantages of counseling culturally different clients. Now more than ever, there are many compelling reasons to prepare culturally effective counselors. They include (a) the multicultural overtones of the American population; (b) the growing number of new immigrants and refugees; (c) the expressed and perceived needs of counselors working with multicultural groups; and (d) the naming of counselors as “necessary” recipients of federal training funds to develop better bilingual programs. The authors propose a counselor training program with a specialization in bilingual-multicultural education. This requires specific attitudes, skills, and competencies based on the interdisciplinary philosophies of counseling, bilingual education, and multicultural education.     

Froebel and the Rise of Educational Theory in the United States

This contribution compares entries on Friedrich Froebel and the kindergarten in German and United States’ histories of education from 1857 to 1933. In the American histories, Froebel appears as the great “hero” of education of the 19th century, whereas in the German histories, Pestalozzi is the “hero.” This difference in the perspectives goes back to fundamental differences in the political culture and political traditions of the two countries, which differed greatly as to the shaping of the public and private spheres. Consequently, there were also different views on public education. In the immigration society of the United States, it was important to integrate children with various language and cultural backgrounds. As families could not do this alone, public kindergartens were needed. In Germany, in contrast, Froebel’s idea of the kindergarten was seen as an attack on family ties, and Pestalozzi was highly esteemed, because he made home education central. The American interest in “making citizens” produced Froebel as the hero; the German interest in leaving the education of young children to mothers and in the family lauded Pestalozzi. This case study of the reception of Froebel in Germany and the United States illustrates the high context-dependence of the construction of educational “heroes.”     

A Conversation About the Intersection of Faith,Sexual Orientation,and Gender: Jewish,Christian, and Muslim Perspectives

Recent challenges to counselor education and the ACA Code of Ethics (American Counseling Association, 2005 ) provided impetus for this article, which is focused on how 3 major Western religions address counseling and counselor training with diverse clients. Jewish, Christian, and Muslim perspectives are highlighted as related to counseling and training issues across faith, sexual orientation, and gender issues.     

Participation in Breast Cancer Genetic Counseling: The Influence of Educational Level, Ethnic Background, and Risk Perception

Genetic counseling has been suggested as a means of providing information and support to women with a family history of breast cancer. Yet women who undergo cancer genetic counseling in the United States generally consist of only a subset of those at risk, namely well-educated, upper-middle class, European American and Jewish women. We report outcomes from a study that provided a unique opportunity to determine whether women of African American, European American, Native American, or Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry have varying interest in having cancer genetic counseling. The study offered a genetic counseling session to 97 women with a family history of breast cancer who were participating in a larger interview study designed to assess attitudes toward genetic testing for breast cancer. The study offered genetic counseling free of charge to all study participants with a family history of breast cancer, removing the potential barriers of cost, the need for a physician referral, and lack of awareness of genetic counseling. Fifty women out of the 97 women offered genetic counseling (52%) accepted the offer by completing a session. Those who accepted genetic counseling had a higher educational level, a higher perceived risk of breast cancer, and were more likely to expect a positive BRCA1 or BRCA2 genetic test if they were to undergo genetic testing. When controlling for education level, there was no correlation between the participants' ethnic background and acceptance of a genetic counseling session. Outreach efforts to minority populations may increase awareness of the availability of genetic counseling and may facilitate participation by such populations.     

Educational Counseling: Concern of the School Counselor

Educational counseling has been a neglected area of concern for the school counselor, even though by virtue of his work setting it should be primary among his responsibilities. Five aspects of the need for a renewed emphasis on this area of the counselor's role are discussed: change in the nature of work, increased professional knowledge, greater demand for persons with high levels of education, the relation of education and psychological freedom, and the need for clearly spelled out objectives in school guidance. It is concluded that while additional theory and research findings are necessary to carry out adequately this aspect of school counseling purpose, it is important at this time that we concern ourselves with this problem.     

Community Participation and Attitudinal Changes Among Teacher Education Students

Augmenting an introductory course in guidance and counseling with a youth-serving experience brought greater changes in students' attitudes toward youth than did such a course coupled with library-reference assignments that focused on guidance principles. It was observed that no relationship exists between academic achievement in the undergraduate course and expressed positive attitudes toward teen-agers. The identification of dropouts in teacher education programs may be rendered more effective by the use of attitudinal measurements.     

Effectiveness of Pre-counseling Genetic Education Workshops at a Large Urban Community Health Center Serving Low-Income Chinese American Women

Chinese American pregnant women and women of childbearing age face economic, cultural and linguistic barriers in accessing mainstream health care services. The Charles B. Wang Community Health Center developed a culturally and linguistically competent genetic education workshop for high-risk Chinese American prenatal patients. Patients referred for genetic counseling for thalassemia, abnormal triple screen results, and/or advanced maternal age were recruited to participate in the workshop. The workshop provided basic “genetic 101” education, focusing on topics that were directly relevant to the patients’ reasons for referral. The effectiveness of the workshop was measured using a quasi-experimental design with pre-post surveys administered to intervention and control group participants. The evaluation also included a genetic counselor assessment and a pilot study of genetic counseling appointment length. Overall, workshop participants showed significant increases in knowledge, positive attitude and self-efficacy regarding genetic services as compared to their control group counterparts. The pilot appointment length study data revealed that the workshop reduced the length of the genetic counseling appointment time by 40%. These positive findings suggest that it would be worthwhile to replicate the genetic education workshop at other health agencies serving Chinese-speaking populations and that further evaluation research should be conducted.     

Constructing careers: actor,agent, and author

When individuals seek career counseling, they have stories to tell about their working lives. The aim of career construction theory is to be comprehensive in encouraging employment counselors to listen for a client's career story from the perspectives of actor, agent, and author. Taking multiple perspectives on career stories enables counselors to offer clients a fitting intervention, whether it is vocational guidance for action, career education and coaching for agency, or career counseling to construct meaning.     

Gone but Not Forgotten: Council Leaders, 1934–1952

The authors summarize the contributions of several leaders of the American Council of Guidance and Personnel Associations, explaining that the counseling profession owes its origin to a coalition of professional organization leaders who were committed to guidance and personnel services. In explaining these leaders' contributions, the authors provide readers with an opportunity to connect a part of the American Counseling Association's past with the present.     

Guidance and Counseling in the Republic of Ireland

University College Dublin introduced counselor training in 1967, and guidance and counseling are now established in secondary education and the national employment and rehabilitation services.     

The Counselor Is a Psychologist

School counselors are anxious about their status and identity as professional workers. They are criticized by other helping professions for their superficiality, and they are being dispossessed of their basic helping functions by school psychologists and social workers. Solutions proposed are abandonment of the guidance model for counselors, and adoption of the counseling psychologist model geared to a two-year master's degree level. Counselors are being called upon increasingly to function as psychological specialists in behavior change and their training has become firmly based in the psychological aspects of behavioral science. Statements by the American School Counselors Association and a growing number of counselor educators emphasize the psychological base of counseling practice.