Advocacy as a critical role for urban school counselors: working toward equity and social justice

Professional School Counseling, Feb, 2005 by Fred Bemak, Rita Chi-Ying Chung

The academic achievement gap of students of color and low-income students as compared to middle and upper socioeconomic students and White students has been clearly documented. Historically the long-standing role of the school counselor has contributed to the status quo of these inequities, inadvertently maintaining educational and social disparities. This has been reflected in school counselors' training, role or job descriptions, and actual practice. This article explores the need for a change of the school counselor's role to incorporate advocacy as a key component in decreasing the achievement gap and fostering social justice and equity for all students. Challenges in being an advocate are discussed along with recommendations for school counselors.

*********

In today's society, educational achievement gaps of poor students and students of color as compared to middle and higher socioeconomic classes and European American students have been clearly documented (Education Trust, 2000; Haycock, 1998). Although this can be attributed to many facets of public education in the United States, school counselors have the potential to play a major role in eliminating academic inequities. This article addresses the importance of K-12 urban school counselors in assuming an advocacy role as part of their work with the aim toward creating social justice in the school environment that will ultimately lead to decreasing the achievement gap. The article will begin with a brief history of the role of advocacy in counseling as it relates to school counselors, followed by a discussion of inequities in schools and how the school counseling profession has maintained the status quo. The importance of a role shift that includes school counselors becoming advocates and strategies to empower school counselors will be discussed. Finally, recommendations will be made for school counselors to infuse advocacy into their work and training.

ADVOCACY IN COUNSELING: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

After decades of school counselors being in a stationary position in schools, there has been some recent movement to change this role. The changing role involves an effort to evolve from simply addressing the needs of individual students to becoming leaders, change agents, and advocates (Bemak, 2000; Lee, 1998; Stone & Hanson, 2002). We would strongly suggest that advocacy be an integral part of the school counselor's changing role. To better understand modern-day advocacy, it is important to briefly review the history of advocacy in the counseling field and the role of the school counselor.

Advocacy can be defined as the belief that, to fight injustices, individual and collective actions that lead toward improving conditions for the benefit of both individuals and groups are necessary (House & Martin, 1998). Advocating for clients or students can be viewed as an act of speaking up or taking action that leads toward environmental changes on behalf of clients (Kiselica & Robinson, 2001). Although advocacy is just reemerging in the counseling field, it has been present in mental health work since the 1700s when there was a movement to improve the conditions of mentally ill people (Brooks & Weikel, 1996). It took another two centuries for advocacy to emerge in schools. The guidance programs of the early 1900s aimed to help students develop personal and moral character while assisting them in locating good jobs that would contribute to the social good. Frank Parsons (1909) introduced vocational counseling as a means to address unemployment for youth who left school. During the same time period, Clifford Beers became an advocate for people suffering from mental illness (Kiselica & Robinson). More recently during the 1970s, the community mental health movement advocacy gained recognition as a component of counseling only to lose ground in the late 1980s and 1990s, when advocacy and social change diminished in importance as counselors strove for professional credibility and narrowly defined scientific research standards (McClure & Russo, 1996).

During the past 15 years, with the exception of multicultural counseling and feminist counseling, the term advocacy has regularly been used to affect legislation and policy and enhance the credibility of the profession, rather than to promote change that addresses social inequities and institutional changes affecting clients and students. Important strides were made in promoting advocacy with the development of the multicultural counseling competencies by Sue, Arredondo, and McDavis (1992). Four years later, the competencies were operationalized (Arredondo et al., 1996). Even with the call for advocacy in the recent literature (Bemak, 1998, 2000; House & Martin, 1998; Kiselica & Robinson, 2001; Lee, 1998; Lewis, Lewis, Daniels, & D'Andrea, 1998; McWhirter, 1994; Myers, Sweeney, & White, 2002), there is still a significant gap between the theoretical discussions about the need for advocacy and actual training and practice. This article addresses the importance and practice of advocacy for school counselors.