| dc.description.abstract | Counselors play a critical role in U.S. schools and provide a range of services to students, from academic guidance to mental health supports. Yet, the profession remains vastly understudied. This three-paper dissertation aims to contribute to the existing literature on school counselors, particularly on the experiences of Black school counselors, by considering their work and policies that impact their work from a variety of perspectives. The first paper uses differences-in-differences to explore the effects of state-level school counselor mandates, finding that these mandates increase the number of school counselors, but no evidence that they affect student-to-counselor ratios. The second paper narrows the focus to master’s in school counseling programs and how faculty in those programs approach recruiting and retaining for diversity. I offer a typology of faculty, based on their perspectives on diversity and their level of engagement with diversity work. The third paper concentrates on the lived experiences of Black school counselors in Mississippi. Using a phenomenological approach, I find that Black school counselors bring an incredible wealth of knowledge to their roles, stemming from their background and complex social identities. However, they are often underutilized or exploited—many times due to their racial identity and the anti-Blackness that persists in our school systems. Taken together, these papers have implications for how policymakers craft legislation that affects school counselors, the efforts of graduate counseling programs to recruit and retain diverse classes of students, and our understanding of how Black school counselors experience their work. | |
