Career counselling issues in Canadian counsellor education

The purpose of this project was to examine the preparation of counsellors, with particular concern for the development of competencies in career guidance. It used a structured interview to survey faculty members involved in counsellor education in faculties of education offering graduate programs. It found increased awareness of career development in terms of increase in the number of graduate courses offered. It also found emphasis upon the consullative role for counsellors, vocational theories of Super and Holland, and continued interest in the development of career counselling competencies.Submitted to the Ninth International Round Table for the Advancement of Counselling,Submitted to the Ninth International Round Table for the Advancement of Counselling,     

The twenty-first century counsellor: An emerging role in changing times

A significant number of personal, social, cultural, and economic forces are encountering each other in our global environment. In order to maintain professional responses which reflect changing times, counsellors and counsellor education programs must attend to international, sociopolitical trends in an interdisciplinary context. In this article, the authors identify trends and recommendations relevant to the future of counselling.     

Tranformation in South Africa: The changing role of the guidance counsellor

Guidance counsellors can play an important contributing role in the reconstruction of education in South Africa. As Guidance and Counselling (G&C) should be a central program in the overall educational system, a program that is holistic with an emphasis on preventive. promotive and developmental approaches is proposed. The implications for training G&C personnel within such a program are examined.     

The formation of the academic counsellor

Conclusion A detailed and exact evaluation of this program of Teacher Formation and of theactivities of academic counsellors is presently underway. We expect to have theresults by the middle of 1982. Nevertheless, partial evaluations of differentteaching and counselling activities show that there has been a change in the conceptionof what education is, development of aptitudes and attitudes and a profoundimprovement in the teaching quality.     

Counsellor bias against shorter term counselling? A comparison of counsellor and client satisfaction in a Canadian setting

The American counselling/psychotherapy outcome research documenting the effectiveness or brief, time-limited treatments is substantial, however, this appears to have had little influence on changing the views of practitioners. One respected researcher has concluded, for example, that a science/practice schism has developed where practitioners continue to believe that brief counselling is superficial and to underestimate the effects of their own shorter-term work. A study was undertaken to determine if counsellors at a large urban Canadian university counselling centre also had lower expectations of change for those clients who received fewer treatment sessions. It was found that the counsellors significantly underestimated treatment gains relative to their clients' reports, and that this discrepancy was greater for those clients seen for fewer sessions. Counsellor satisfaction was also lower with clients seen for fewer sessions. These findings suggest that, like their American counterparts, Canadian counsellors tend toward a practitioner bias against shorter-term treatment based on misconceptions about its efficacy.     

The locus of evaluation: becoming a professional counsellor

Students who register for counselling courses in higher education are mature adults who come from diverse disciplines. They are rich in experience and during the process of counselling education become proficient in adapting to changing circumstances, and working with personal and professional challenge. The requirements for studentship in the field of counselling demand stringent self-examination in group settings, and surpass those required for courses which require only subject knowledge and academic skills. Because of their willingness to pursue self-discovery, counselling students provide a rich source of data for researchers interested in lifelong learning from an holistic perspective of achieving UNESCO's vision of the ‘full development of the personality’ (cited in Darkenwald and Merriam 1982: 13). Student counsellors must demonstrate a willingness to work with uncertainty, an ability to develop personal learning goals and have the capacity to appraise personal development (Mearns 1997: 99). This study examines how student counsellors discover strategies for learning, and how they manage the personal/professional divide. Existing intimate partnerships are viewed as supportive, but suspicious of the learning process. The narratives of students indicate that ‘professionalism’ is about acceptance of self, as much as about qualifications and practice. Participants describe the process of becoming professional, alongside the process of struggling to fit in with the academic requirements of a university. Lifelong learning is described as lacking a framework for acceptance by others, and therefore seen merely as a diversion in the lives of adults. From a counselling perspective, learning requires opportunities for employment so that professional and personal development can continue. Such courses at present appear to offer only a short-term ‘permissive structure’, for learning to take place.     

“两学两多”远程教育教学模式的构建

主要研究电大远程开放教育教学工作中的教学模式,力图在对新的教学模式的构建与研究中探索出与传统教学模式相结合的新思路,在保持优势的基础上,深化教学改革,推动远程开放教育的发展.     

Factors affecting Canadian teachers' willingness to teach sexual health education

Non-specialist teachers in Canada are increasingly required to teach sexual health topics. However, research suggests that they do not always do so willingly. This study examined the associations between the characteristics of non-specialist elementary and middle school teachers (n = 294) in Canadian schools and their willingness to provide sexual health education (SHE) and their perceptions of factors affecting their willingness to provide SHE. On average, the teachers were only somewhat willing to teach SHE and their willingness varied between topics. The teachers who reported greater willingness to teach SHE were more likely to be teaching middle school, have less teaching experience, have received training to teach SHE, feel more knowledgeable about sexual health, and view broad-based SHE as more important. More than 20% of participants identified 10 out of 11 factors as making them less willing to teach sexual health education; conversely, more than 20% of participants identified nine of these 11 factors as making them more willing to teach sexual health education. Teachers who were middle school teachers, had received training to teach sexual health, had more experience teaching SHE, and felt more knowledgeable about sexual health topics were more likely to regard all of these factors as enhancing their willingness to teach SHE. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for training designed to increase teachers' willingness to teach sexual health.     

Nurturing and educating children prenatally exposed to alcohol: The role of the counsellor

Previous studies are summarized on the incidence and nature of alcohol-related defects, as such defects relate to health, motor and speech development, behaviour, intelligence and school achievement.In the present study, thirty-four children were located. Their caregivers and social workers provided background information on the children, who were assessed on the Wechsler Scales. Discussion centres on the need to provide long-term support services to these children, their caregivers and their schools. The role of counsellors in such support systems is central.Department of Educational Psychology, University of Alberta     

Students' expressed and actual preferences for counsellor race and sex

This study analysed secondary school students' expressed and actual preferences for counsellor sex and race and also investigated the influence of type of problem on these preferences. A sample of 430 fifth form (15–16 years old) students including 74 Maori/Polynesian males, 109 Maori/Polynesian females, 90 pakeha (European) males, and 87 pakeha females from six schools in two cities completed the Choosing a Counsellor questionnaire. Half the sample were asked to assume they had a vocational problem while the remainder assumed they had a personal problem.     

The Canadian Accent

Accent Alert栏目又和大家见面了。本期主题加拿大,加拿大的官方语言是哪些？加拿大式英语又有哪些特色？不妨来看看,let’s go!     

英语国家商务文化习惯与亚文化认知——商务文化新解之加拿大篇

本文主要介绍加拿大的商务文化。商务文化作为国际经济和国际贸易的内涵要素和重要支撑,越来越多地受到人们的高度重视。同样是英语国家,加拿大的商务文化背景与美国、英国、澳大利亚和新西兰等英语国家有很大的不同,尤其是这个国家语言的双语制。