School Guidance Interventions

Peterson and Nisenholz (1994) report that guidance and counseling are increasingly being used as interventions to assist social and academic growth and progress in elementary schools, as well as to prevent several psychobehavioral, psychosocial and/or health problems from occurring during children's later school years. As the authors put it:

The new attitude is the earlier the better...In the past, counseling was generally thought of as a task for secondary school...Today's educators know better...There's clear evidence that behavioral problems are more easily identified, treated, and remedied in young children than in adolescents. (p. 260)

One of the objectives of this early intervention is to build the child's self-esteem which is commonly defined as the child's general evaluation of him- or her self (Ziegler, Scott & Taylor, 1991). The purpose of this chapter of the proposal is to examine the literature on the effects of guidance interventions on young children's self-esteem.

The review begins with a brief discussion of the nature of self-esteem and its relation to the child's general self-concept. This is followed by an examination of the empirical research investigating various guidance/counseling interventions for their effects on the self-esteem of elementary school children.

One point that should be noted regarding the presented review is that while the major portion of the reviewed literature used samples of e

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ts of students. There are indications that it also increases students' often relatively low self-esteem. Roberge (1998) has discussed a guidance intervention aimed at preventing school failure and subsequent dropout in children's later school years. The project was called "Providing Opportunities for Developing Success" or PODS. The project consisted of eight "PODS," or groups of 5560 students, (two at each participating school) with two teachers assigned to each POD. While the underlying goal was to reduce the dropout rate, the overall objective was to provide more personalized support for all students through programs described in the literature as the "best practices" for responding to students at risk of dropping out. In this way, it was anticipated that meaningful and successful activities would become permanent features of the schools, and would be available to all students in the system. The main objectives and supporting activities of PODS were: to develop among at-risk students a sense of belonging; to develop students' sense of identification, and membership within the school community; to develop within at-risk students the ability to demonstrate mastery in endeavors relevant and suitable to their individual ne

Category: Psychology - S