Margaret R. Rogers

Exemplary Efforts in Psychology to Recruit and Retain Graduate Students of Color.

Many psychology departments are striving for a greater representation of students of color within their graduate preparation programs with the aim of producing a more diverse pool of psychological service providers, scientists, and educators. To help improve the minority pipeline in psychology, the authors identify and describe recruitment and retention strategies used at 11 departments and programs considered to be making exemplary efforts to attract and retain minority students of color. The strategies most consistently used included engaging current minority faculty and students in recruitment activities, offering attractive financial aid packages, having faculty members make personal contacts with prospective students, creating linkages with historical institutions of color, having (or approached having) a critical mass of faculty and students of color, offering a diversity issues course, and engaging students in diversity issues research. Despite the similarities, the programs and departments were each distinctive and innovative in their overall approaches to student recruitment and retention. Highlighting the strategies used at successful institutions may help others develop plans for improving the minority pipeline within their own departments and programs.

Identifying Critical Cross-Cultural School Psychology Competencies

Abstract The purpose of this study was to identify critical cross-cultural competencies for school psychologists. This study used a Delphi procedure to bring together the expertise of a national sample of cross-cultural experts, including school psychology practitioners, faculty, and supervisors/administrators of whom 62% represented a racial/ethnic minority group member. To identify the competencies, we conducted an extensive literature search about cross-cultural school psychology competencies then used a questionnaire to ask expert panelists to rate the importance of the literature based competencies and to delineate additional competencies not represented in the integrated literature but based on expert opinion. The literature yielded 185 competencies and the panelists generated 75 additional competencies. Following the second questionnaire round, 102 competencies were identified as critical cross-cultural competencies. The 102 competencies cover 14 major domains of professional activities and practices for school psychologists (e.g., Academic Interventions, Assessment, Consultation, Counseling, Culture, Language, Laws and Regulations, Organizational Skills, Professional Characteristics, Report Writing, Research Methods, Theoretical Paradigms, Working with Interpreters, and Working with Parents). Implications for research and training are discussed.

Development of the Inclusion Attitude Scale for High School Teachers.

This study involved the development of a new scale to measure high school teacher attitudes toward the inclusion of students with disabilities in regular education classrooms. A second aim was to examine the relationship of teachers’ professional development regarding inclusion, their years of experience with inclusion, access to instructional supports and resources, and gender to their attitudes toward inclusion. A principal axis factor analysis of the 27-item Inclusion Attitude Scale for High School Teachers yielded three factors accounting for 44.5% of the common variance. The coefficient alphas for the three factors and total scale were .91, .85, .77, and .92, respectively. Results of this web-based study suggest that high school teachers who have taken at least one special education course and those with several in-services about inclusion feel positively about it in comparison to teachers with no relevant coursework or in-services. Teachers with experience implementing inclusion in their own classrooms also report positive attitudes. Teachers with access to instructional resources, including curricular materials and fellow professionals with specialized skills, were positively inclined affectively and behaviorally to inclusion. Finally, male teachers reported more favorable attitudes than did female teachers. Limitations of the study and future directions for research are discussed.

Exemplary multicultural training in school psychology programs.

This study examined the characteristics of school psychology programs noted for training students from a multicultural perspective. The program characteristics and training environment at 17 programs were studied through semistructured interviews with faculty and students, and reviews of prospective student application materials for multicultural content. Findings suggest that students at all programs were exposed to minority clients during applied fieldwork, 94% of the programs required a diversity issues course, 59% of the programs specialized in training with specific minority group populations, 31% of the students and 25% of the faculty represented a racial-ethnic minority group member, and 24% of the faculty were bilingual. Most programs used multiple multicultural curriculum models and employed a wide variety of recruitment and retention strategies specifically aimed at minority students. Faculty and students characterized their overall university training environment as supportive of programmatic initiatives regarding diversity issues, yet several reported uneven experiences with implementation.

Experiences and perspectives of African American, Latina/o, Asian American, and European American psychology graduate students: A national study.

A national, Web-based survey of 1,219 African American, Latina/o, Asian American, and European American psychology graduate students revealed both similarities and differences in experiences and perspectives. Mentoring was found to be the strongest predictor of satisfaction across groups. Academic supports and barriers, along with perceptions of diversity within the academic environment, were also important predictors of satisfaction. Students of color perceived less fairness of representation of their ethnic group within psychology than European American students, and a greater linkage between aspects of the graduate school experience and their ethnicity. Limitations of the study and implications for future research and action are discussed.

School Consultants Working for Equity With Families, Teachers, and Administrators

The aim of this special issue is to explore issues of equity within the context of school-based consulting with nonmainstream parents and their children. Ample evidence documents the difficulties faced by nonmainstream parents in the public schools in being respected as cocontributors to their children’s educational achievement (Ho, 2002; Kozol, 1991; Nelson & Rogers, 2002), having their voices heard and welcomed by teachers and administrators (Christenson, Rounds, & Franklin, 1992; Fine, 1993), and getting their special interests recognized (Lott, 2001, 2003). This is especially problematic given research indicating that parental involvement in the schools is an important contributor to children’s academic success (Heller & Fantuzzo, 1993; Henderson, 1987), classroom behavior (Comer & Haynes, 1992), and eventual school completion (Christenson, Sinclair, Lehr, & Godbar, 2001; Marcus & Sanders-Reio, 2001). Clearly, parents play a significant role in ensuring positive educational outcomes for their children so finding ways to facilitate their involvement needs to be a priority. Working with school-based consultants is an important way that parents can interact with the schools to achieve positive outcomes. To date, the parent consultation literature has addressed an array of topics including parent consultation models (e.g., Sheridan, 1993), problem-solving steps used in parent consultation (Elliott & Sheridan, 1992), factors related to the effectiveness of parent consultation (Cobb & Medway, 1978), and home-based parent consultation (Edens, 1997; Greene, Kamps, Wyble, & JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSULTATION, 16(1&2), 1–16 Copyright

Ethnicity matters for undergraduate majors in challenges, experiences, and perceptions of psychology.

In this investigation of a national sample of undergraduate psychology majors, we directly compare the experiences and perceptions of students of color with those of European Americans. Our aim was to identify factors that might contribute to our disciplines educational pipeline, in which the relative lack of ethnic diversity is a recognized problem. We found that students of color and European American majors are similar in a number of ways but also different in others. Students of color are challenged by less encouragement from and interaction with faculty, perceive a lack of respect, and wish to see more attention to diversity in curriculum, research, faculty, and textbooks. It is not surprising that students of color were significantly less satisfied than European Americans with their studies in psychology.

Delivering and Receiving Bad News: What School Psychologists Need to Know

Delivering bad news to students, teachers, and parents is not an uncommon occurrence for school psychologists. Skillfully communicating bad news requires sensitivity, thoughtful wording, and an awareness of the potential effect on the recipients. Despite the importance of this skill, school psychology has devoted little attention to what is currently known about delivering bad news. This article synthesizes the literature on presenting and receiving bad news, devoting special attention to how information can be used by school psychologists in their day-to-day practices. Primarily drawn from medicine, the scholarship is instructive as a guide to the many dimensions of bad news delivery including what needs to be considered beforehand, how to communicate, cultural factors to consider, and conveying hope.