Reconceptualizing the role of high school counsellors
A TEACHER-COUNSELLOR-RESEARCHER PROFILE
care. Counsellors did not perceive
tension in supporting students for
post-secondary or other academic
assistance. Implications for future
research were identified, which
may further reveal the work of
high school counsellors, work that
may be frequently clandestine to
school stakeholders because of the
confidential nature of the school
counsellor’s role.
What prompted the topic of your
dissertation Sharlene?
Dr. Sharlene McGowan recently
superannuated as a teacher and high
school counsellor, having spent 31
years in the K -12 public education
sector. She is currently a sessional
lecturer for the University of Regina
and First Nations University of Canada
as well as a mental health therapist for
Homewood Health. Sharlene worked
on her doctoral research while she
was a full-time teacher and counsellor.
Her successfully defended doctoral
dissertation is the result of persistence
and the support of her husband,
Thomas Scott-McGowan, and other
family members as well as her co-
supervisors and doctoral committee.
Research abstract
Sharlene designed her doctoral
research to acquire authentic
data about the roles of practicing
high school counsellors. Through
a qualitative collective case study
design, twelve practicing high school
counsellors were interviewed about
their perceptions of their role.
Using open and axial coding, data
were thematically reported and
analyzed and were embedded in
three conceptual frameworks: an
interpretivist approach, elements of
Durkheim’s structural functionalism,
and principles of grounded theory.
The results demonstrated that
school counsellors perceived
tension in 10 of 11 thematic topics:
advocacy practices, role ambiguity,
the overwhelming demands placed
upon them, their work as front-line
mental health workers, parental
communication, the unpredictability
of their work day, collaborative
practices, their support of school
staff, involvement in crisis, and self-
As a high school counsellor, I puzzled
about the anachronistic discourse of
guidance counsellor. I felt the role had
transformed considerably in the past
decades to become a demanding role
that is characterized by complexities,
tension, and ambiguity, which were
no longer reflected in the former
discourse. The clandestine nature of
the role pushes understandings of the
role by the educational establishment
further into obscurity. Secondly, I
wondered if high school counsellors
in Canada function as social justice
advocates for or with students, a role
which is represented by an enormous
body of American research but is
under-researched in Canada.
How has your research helped you in
your professional role?
It helped to widen my vision insofar
as grounding my own experience
and the experiences of my research
participants in the academic discourse
related to the role of high school
counsellor. My research also helped
me to consider that school counsellors
may be embedded in the social
structure of the school and therefore
players in the rituals and status quo
of the larger systemic ecology and its
competing complexities.
What do you hope your research
might accomplish within the
educational context?
I hope my research may spark
conversations within the educational
establishment that the role of
high school counsellor should be
reconceptualized to reflect a truer
understanding of the role. Rather than
being a marginalized extravagance to
support the school’s function as an
institution for teaching and learning,
I would like to have it acknowledged
that high school counsellors are
integral to supporting students in
several key areas, most notably in their
mental health needs. Counsellors are
vital liaisons between students and
their parents or guardians as well
as agencies external to the school.
Finally, high school counsellors have
the capacity to serve as social justice
advocates for or with students in the
face of systemic inequities.
A salient excerpt from Sharlene's
dissertation
“Present-day counsellors feel conflicted
about their role and are frequently at
odds with the demands placed upon
them by their administrators, colleagues,
and even by students’ parents. Within
the school and systemic structures in
which they must work, counsellors feel
torn between their role as employees
and their role as advocates for and with
students, specifically when both roles
seem to have opposing interests.
One significant finding from this
research was that high school
counsellors are front-line mental health
workers in the lives of students and
assist during times of crisis. They save
student lives through routine suicide
interventions.
This study has demonstrated that the
current roles of high school counsellors
are considerably different from the
historical construction of vocational and
personal guidance counsellors. What
has emerged from this study is the need
to critically reconceptualise the role
of the contemporary counsellor and to
have the complexity and tensions of
these roles acknowledged, understood,
and appreciated by the educational
establishment.”
Date of defence: August 2, 2017
Supervisor/s: Drs. James McNinch
and JoLee Sasakamoose
Committee: Drs. Donalda Halabuza,
Val Mulholland, and Larry Steeves
External examiner: Dr. Natalee
Popadiuk, University of Victoria
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