School Counseling & Gender Preferences

Adolescents must put it all together, the sexual stirrings, the social demands, the new awareness, the fear of being different, the need to be someone unique yet not alien. No wonder they feel disconnected and disorganized. (p.611)

School counseling services are designed to help adolescents deal with these developmental changes and difficulties as well as with more serious problems such as substance abuse and psycho-pathological problems (Peterson & Nisenholz, 1987). However,

there exists a substantial body of research which suggests that the degree to which counseling is an effective helping relationship is not independent of counselor characteristics (e.g. Cormier & Cormier, 1985; Egan, 1986; Patterson, 1985; Strong, 1968), one of which is gender (Schaffer, 1981). In other words, the degree to which clients are helped is often influenced by the characteristics of their counselors such as counselor gender.

As an expansion on the existing body of research on counseling in relation to counselor characteristics in general and counselor gender in particular, this study examined for significant associations between gender of client and counselor gender preferences in counseling services offered in a secondary school setting.

While counselor gender has been examined in the psychological literature, the majority of studies have used adult rather than adolescent po

. . .
e to suggest that if clients' believe that it is easier for them to talk to same sex counselors, then it will be easier for them because they will be more willing to trust and disclose. But do clients, in fact, have those gender-preferences which the psychological literature and community state that they have? The research on this issue is sparse and mixed in support (Schaffer, 1981; Peterson & Nisenholtz, 1987). More important given the purposes of this study, is that most of the research is based on data collected from adults rather than adolescents (Peterson & Nisenholtz, 1987). Given the foregoing, it can be seen that there is a need not only for further investigation of this question but also for investigation based on data collected from adolescent populations and samples. This study constituted such an investigation in that it examined gender preferences of a group of adolescents in five selected areas of counseling focus. The five areas assessed (these areas being delineated in the study's "Statement of Purpose" section) were selected based on the writings of Muro and Dinkmeyer (1977) who first delineated the areas as important for school counseling based on the findings of their study which, they stated, showed th
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Approximate Word count = 2472
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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