Diversification of School Psychology - APA PsycNET - American ...

School Psychology Quarterly 2016, Vol. 31, No. 3, 305–310

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INTRODUCTION

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Diversification of School Psychology: Developing an Evidence Base From Current Research and Practice Jamilia J. Blake

Scott Graves

Texas A&M University

Duquesne University

Markeda Newell

Shane R. Jimerson

Loyola University Chicago

University of California, Santa Barbara

Why is there a need to increase the racial/ethnic diversity of faculty in school psychology? Chiefly, school psychologists serve the most racially/ethnically diverse population: children in US schools. Therefore, developing a knowledge base that is inclusive of this wide range of perspective as well as growing a workforce that is reflective of this diversity is essential to effective service delivery. To achieve this goal, school psychology trainers must develop evidence-based, purposeful efforts to recruit and retain racial/ethnic minority students in doctoral programs. For these reasons, we called for a special issue on diversifying the field of school psychology. The purpose of this special issue is to advance the evidence-base in school psychology on how to increase diverse scholars and leaders in the profession. Moreover, the goal is to also evaluate the status of the profession in effectively recruiting and retaining racial/ethnic minority graduate students, mentoring racial/ethnic minority students to pursue careers in academia, and promoting faculty development and retention of racially and ethnically diverse faculty. Thus, the articles in this special issue will address critical areas where trainers can improve recruitment and retention strategies that will increase the racial/ethnic diversity of school psychology faculty, leaders, and practitioners. Keywords: diversification, recruitment, retention, race, ethnicity, school psychology profession

For decades, there has been a call for racial and ethnic parity in the school psychology at the graduate, practice, and university faculty levels (Castillo, Curtis, & Tan, 2014; Proctor, Simpson, Levin, & Hackimer, 2014; Zhou et al., 2004). Among the health service psychol-

Jamilia J. Blake, Department of Educational Psychology, Texas A&M University; Scott Graves, Department of Counseling, Psychology and Special Education, Duquesne University; Markeda Newell, School Psychology, Loyola University Chicago; Shane R. Jimerson, Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jamilia J. Blake, Department of Educational Psychology, Texas A&M University, MS 4225, College Station, TX 77843. E-mail: [email protected]

ogy subspecialties, school psychology programs have the lowest percentage of full-time faculty from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds (American Psychological Association Center for Workforce Studies, 2011). The APA Center for Workforce Studies revealed that in 2009 to 2010, 11.8% of fulltime school psychology faculty were from racially/ethnically diverse backgrounds in comparison to 26.4% of full-time faculty in counseling psychology and 16.7% of fulltime clinical psychology faculty. Similarly, in a national study of practicing school psychologists, African Americans and Latinos comprise only 0.96% and 5.7% of school psychology faculty members, respectively, with European Americans representing the majority of faculty members (93.27%; Castillo,

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Curtis, Chappel, & Cunningham, 2011; Castillo, Curtis, & Gelley, 2013). Similar demographic trends have also been found among practitioners (Castillo et al., 2014) and also among graduate students enrolled in school psychology programs (Bocanegra, Gubi, & Cappaert, 2016; Grapin, Lee, & Jaafar, 2015; Proctor et al., 2014). Calls for diversity in school psychology have stemmed in part from the increasingly diverse racial/ethnic student population in public schools in the United States. Historically, White students have represented the numerical majority of students enrolled in public schools; however, in 2013, the percentage of racially and ethnically diverse and White students was equal (Kena et al., 2016). That is, 50% of public school students identified as White and 50% identified as African American, Hispanic, Asian, American Indian, and Pacific Islander or multiracial. Moreover, it is projected by 2025, racial and ethnic minority students will comprise the numerical majority of public schools students, outnumbering White students by more than 10% (Kena et al., 2016). These changing demographics mark a significant shift in the racial/ ethnic composition of the public school population and signals that culture will increasingly play a central role in the educational experiences of all students and the type of services offered to them. An important question is, “How may the increasing racial and ethnic diversity of the student body impact school psychological service delivery?” There is a growing body of research on the potential benefits of racialethnic match in therapeutic and studentteacher relationships; therefore, many scholars have suggested that school psychologists should mirror the students they serve in terms of their racial/ethnic background and language proficiency (Bates & Glick, 2013; Cabral & Smith, 2011; Downer, Goble, Myers, & Pianta, 2016). Moreover, it is hypothesized that increasing the number of racial and ethnic minority school psychologists will create a cadre of psychologists who will possess the racial sensitivity and awareness to advocate for, conduct research relevant to, and effectively provide mental health services to children from racial and ethnic minority communities (Beasley, Miller, & Cokley,

2015). Although there is no empirical evidence to support this notion directly, investigations into the reason students of color select graduate psychology programs provides some basis for this proposition. Research has shown that graduate students were more likely to select a graduate program based on the opportunity to work with diverse populations, specifically populations from their cultural community (Maton et al., 2011; Rogers & Molina, 2006). Studies of African American school psychology students graduate school experiences indicate that they believed school psychology would be more appealing to African American students if the field focused on how school psychologists of color could contribute to and enhance their respective cultural communities through psychological service delivery (Proctor & Truscott, 2012; Proctor et al., 2014). Collectively, these findings suggest that graduate students of color, particularly African American students, have a clear intention to service culturally diverse communities during their training, and, if given the opportunity, quite possibly will do so following the completion of their graduate studies. Beyond ensuring that school psychologists reflect the diversity of the student populations they serve, advocates for the diversification of the profession argue that diversity has significant implications for training. Students who participate in graduate coursework with individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds are reported to experience deeper and more meaningful learning that translates into greater cultural competence (Newell et al., 2010). Research suggests that university campuses and classrooms that include students from a range of racial, ethnic, linguistic, religious, economic, and, most importantly, experiential backgrounds cannot only improve learning outcomes for all students, but also enrich and expand the students’ understanding of diversity (Chang, 2002; Pike, Kuh, & Gonyea, 2007; Terenzini, Cabrera, Colbeck, Bjorklund, & Parente, 2001). This may be because individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds bring distinct world views, experiences, and perspectives that can foster social understanding and fuel exercises in perspective taking, which may result in critical thinking and empathy (Antonio et al., 2004; Nemeth, 1992; Pitt & Packard, 2012).


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The value of having a diverse workforce in school psychology cannot be understated as it offers educational benefits to psychologists in training and society as a whole in terms of improving the quality of culturally sensitive mental health service delivery made available to children from disenfranchised groups. As such, a number of recommendations have been offered to diversify graduate programs in school psychology by increasing the number of racially and ethnically diverse students who will eventually enter the field as practitioners and trainers (Graves & Wright, 2009). Interestingly, far less attention has been devoted to strategies to increasing the racial/ ethnic diversity of school psychology practitioners, faculty, and also promoting leadership among ethnically and racially diverse faculty. Greater diversity in leadership has several benefits. In particular, research has demonstrated that diverse teams consistently outperform nondiverse teams through increased productivity and satisfaction (Stahl, Maznevski, Voigt, & Jonsen, 2010; Watson, Johnson, & Zgourides, 2002). Furthermore, considering that diverse leaders have learned to negotiate their own as well as the majority culture; they may be more flexible and open to change (Eagly & Chin, 2010). As such, diversifying the profession is beneficial on all levels. Diversification among school psychology students, practitioners, and faculty warrants further understanding and emphasis. There is a critical need to identify high-quality research and practices that are being conducted across the field of school psychology in order to scale-up and advance efforts to diversify the profession. Whereas a number of studies have identified strategies for addressing the lack of diversity in the profession, with few exceptions, empirical research examining the implementation and the effectiveness of these practices have not been forthcoming (Graves & Wright, 2007; Rogers & Molina, 2006; Proctor et al., 2014). Hence, the purpose of this special topic section is to advance the evidence base in school psychology on how to increase diverse scholars and leaders in the profession and to evaluate the status of the profession in effectively recruiting and retaining racial/ethnic minority graduate students, mentoring racial/ethnic minority students to

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pursue careers in academia, and promoting faculty development and retention of racially and ethnically diverse faculty. The articles in this special topic section address this call by contributing new knowledge to the literature base in terms of strategies for diversifying the pipeline at entry into the profession primarily through recruitment and mentoring. Proctor and Romano’s (2016) structured review of the school psychology recruitment literature yields important insights into future directions for the recruitment of racially and ethnically diverse students to school psychology. Within a 20-year span, they found that only 10 articles were published on recruitment in the field with the majority of these articles centering on (a) knowledge and perception of school psychology and (b) professional experiences of school psychology. They propose that emphasis on school psychology knowledge, exposure, and experience could serve as a springboard for developing practices to recruit diverse students. Their findings point to critical avenues for improvement and development in the field. The recruitment literature appears to be highly theoretical and aspirational. Whereas theory generation is critical for intervention development, the recruitment scholarship in school psychology should move beyond examining knowledge and exposure of school psychology to program evaluation of school psychology programs in terms of their recruitment efforts. That is scholars should begin to examine which recruitment strategies have the greatest impact on graduate student choice intentions (Bocanegra et al., 2016; Bocanegra, Gubi, Fan, & Hansman, 2015), enrollment (Smith, Blake, & Graves, 2013) and retention, and the mechanism that underlie the success (or failure) of these strategies. Development and evaluation of new recruitment strategies and efforts will also be an important aspect of this work. Doing so, however, will require adoption of methodologies more common to applied intervention research (e.g., propensity score matching, single subject designs, mixed method analyses) to assess the unique contributions of specific strategies (i.e., component analyses) for increasing graduate student diversification. In the second article, Smith and colleagues (2016) present the results of a content analysis of school psychology program websites to eval-


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uate the utility of common recruitment practices by examining the presence of multicultural content on program websites necessary to attract racially and ethnically diverse students to school psychology. Their work marks an improvement in the recruitment literature as it speaks directly to Proctor and Romano’s (2016) call for more evaluative studies of school psychology programs’ recruitment efforts. Interestingly, their findings indicate advancements in school psychology’s efforts to diversify the field at the graduate level, but also identify key areas for further improvement. Most notably is the recommendation that school psychology programs be explicit in their statements toward the promotion of diversity and their creation of coursework that results in expertise in multiculturalism on their websites to be on par with other specialties of health service psychology (e.g., clinical and counseling psychology) that have shown greater success in diversifying their profession. Smith and colleagues’ (2016) work represent a first step in understanding the practices that programs use to recruit diverse students. Future research will need to explicitly examine if these strategies are effective by surveying and interviewing prospective students as well as students who have committed to school psychology programs and examining the enrollment and retention practices of racially and ethnically diverse students within and across programs adopting these practices over time. In addition to understanding how to recruit and retain racially and ethnically diverse students, it is also important to investigate who should be the targets of these efforts. Historically, the discussion on the recruitment of racially and ethnically diverse students to school psychology has centered on the recruitment of Black/African Americans students to the field (Proctor & Romano, 2016). To move the field forward, it is essential that the recruitment efforts target members from other racial/ethnic backgrounds. In the third article, Goforth, Brown, Machek, and Swaney (in press) offer conceptual model and strategies to recruit and retain Native American students in school psychology, a population that has been sorely understudied. These recommendations are situated within a historical context and presented through a cultural lens to provide the field with promising practices to attract Native American students to the field and support them through

their graduate study. Subsequent investigations using case study methodology are needed to explicitly examine how cultural nuances suggested in this work promote Native American students entry and retention in the field. Conclusion The collection of articles included in this special topic section provide further insights regarding how school psychology can build an evidence base for the recruitment of racially and ethnically diverse students. These articles represent an advancement in the school psychology recruitment literature in that they employ empirically based methods and culturally relevant perspectives to identify strategies to recruit ethnically and racially diverse students. Despite the contribution of these manuscripts, there is still much work to be done in order to fully build an evidence base for diversifying the field. It appears that much of the research on diversifying the profession focuses on entry into school psychology, with limited attention directed to strategies for retention, promotion, or practices to cultivate leadership among racially and ethnically diverse school psychology practitioners and faculty. Outside of accounts of ethnically and racially diverse faculty and students mentoring experiences, the literature is limited regarding the role mentoring plays in graduation rates and faculty promotion and receipt of tenure (Graves & Brown-Wright, 2013). Moreover, there is limited discussion or evaluation for how racially and ethnically diverse school psychologists are exposed to and become involved in professional leadership and the impact this process has on the field in terms of retention of racially and ethnically diverse school psychologists. This represents a significant gap in the professional literature that should be addressed theoretically and empirically. School psychology scholars should look to disciplines in higher education such as student affairs and higher education administration to identify models, strategies, and methods to develop and evaluate professional mentoring programs geared to foster the success of diverse school psychology students and professionals. An additional area that requires further inquiry is how institutional diversity efforts and policies undermine or support school psychology programs’ diversification efforts


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