Critical Consciousness of School Counselors in Turkey

OZEL, DILARA
Middle East Technical University, METU Faculty of Education, 06600, Ankara

 

Submission type

Oral only

Scheduled

Room 119, 10-07-2019, 09:00 - 10:30

Keywords

school counselor, critical consciousness, critical thinking, diversity, migration, ethnicity

Summary

Critical consciousness is the process of continuously reflecting upon and examining how our own biases, assumptions, and cultural worldviews affect the ways we perceive difference and power dynamics (Pitner& Sakemoto, 1994). School counselors should understand the privilege and power dynamics inside the society. Therefore, they can evaluate their students and clients by considering the socio-political context to help them in an effective way. In this study, the research question that intended to be answered is how school counselors apply critical consciousness in their professional practices. In this study, 12 school counselors are interviewed about the issues and the needs that they encounter inside the school. Demographic differences such as gender, socioeconomic status and ethnicity were addressed during the interviews in order to learn if school counselors’ perceptions and attitudes differ by considering these demographic characteristics. There are five main themes as a result of the analysis of the interviews with 12 school counselors; awareness, context and respect, integration, praxis and empowerment, transformation. It was noticed that school counselors cannot use critical consciousness skills for the students who have a different ethnic background. It can be concluded that school counselors do not have the desired critical consciousness skills in order to give objective counseling services.

Auteurs