This qualitative longitudinal multiple case study offers a perspective into the college information gathering practices across a sample of low-income students at two large urban public high schools. The findings show that students engage in and benefit from comprehensive information gathering strategies but that disparities exist across academic…

This qualitative study utilized interviews with 20 Latina/o high school seniors and five secondary school counselors in South Texas to further understand how counselors help Latina/o students navigate their college choice process. Findings indicate counselors provided students with access to college information and facilitated university…

School counselors should focus on helping underrepresented students access higher education in efforts to close achievement gaps. Limited information is available regarding how first-generation and ethnic minority students view school counseling efforts to promoting post-secondary opportunities. Participants in this study indicated school…

This article defines service-learning within the context of school counseling and describes a school counseling program that integrated service-learning into classroom guidance for elementary students. Student reflections about their experiences within the framework of personal-social, academic, and career development are provided. Additionally,…

Multiculturalism continues to be a powerful force within the counseling profession. While there appears to be an increase in the awareness of topics related to diversity, there are topics that continue to be underrepresented, particularly with regard to the training of future school counselors. One such topic is that of issues related to gay,…

Cyberbullying is a complex and disturbing 21st century phenomena. School counselors must understand the dynamics and risks of cyberbullying in order to help students, parents, and faculty deal with this difficult issue. We examined the extent to which middle school students understand, participate, and cope with cyberbullying issues in today's…

The benefits of a strength-based approach to working with children and adolescents are clearly indicated in the literature while Strengths-Based School Counseling embraces the positive development of students and learning environments. An interdisciplinary research team formed a partnership with a middle school community to intentionally…

Gifted students may seek school counselors for help with concerns regarding various aspects of their gifted experience. The purpose of this study was to determine which counseling concerns are experienced by gifted students. While underachievement and identity were not reported to be concerns encountered by 153 participants enrolled in a summer…

Research has illustrated that school counselors "do not" provide Latina/o students with sufficient information about higher education (Immerwahr, 2003; Zalaquett, 2005), high expectations (Martinez, 2003), and individual counseling and guidance (Vela Gude et al., in press). Because school counselors are supposed to play an important role in…

This study examined the worries and concerns of 24 Hispanic counselors-in training. The four most reported worries were training and preparedness, non-counseling duties, finding a school counseling position, and effectiveness. Results indicate that although Hispanic counselors-in training are concerned about their effectiveness and competence as…

Differential perceptions among students, parents, and school personnel in relation to peer victimization were examined. Data were collected at three time points. Students reported lower overall levels of peer victimization at Time 1 than did parents and lower levels of verbal victimization than did teachers. Students reported victimization…

This article examines the evaluations of nine pre-service school counselors who completed a practicum in an inner-city or urban, predominately African American school. A content analysis of the pre-service counselors' narrative evaluations was studied and six themes emerged: (a) Relationships and Interactions with Urban Students and Educators, (b)…

With a trendsetting change in the demographic population of public high school students, school counselors need to be equipped with multicultural competence to better understand the needs of the students they serve, especially Latino students. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to obtain Latino high school students' perceptions and…

A random convenience sample was compiled using 430 undergraduate students enrolled at a large northeastern university. Reported contact with school counselors in the three ASCA domains (academic, career, personal/social) and effectiveness ratings were examined. Female students reported significantly more contact only on career topics than males.…

A three-page questionnaire was modified to a one-page format. Questionnaires were administered in classroom groups to 300 middle school students. Classrooms were randomly divided into two groups, with one group receiving the original three-page format and the other receiving a single-page version of the same questionnaire. The visual layout of the…