Academic Hiring Policies and Projections: A Survey of CACREP- and APA-Accredited Counseling Programs

This study investigated 84 counselor education and counseling psychology programs to determine the academic hiring policies and projections for employment in the next 10 years.     

The Role of Confidence in Lifelong Learning

The key objectives and targets of the Learning and Skills Council's (LSC, 2001) corporate plan concerned with increasing participation in education, enhancing workforce training, and raising the achievement of young people and adults are all dependent upon breaking down the barriers and obstacles that stand in the way of facilitating meaningful learning and progression. However, even after the well-documented 'situational' and 'institutional' barriers have been overcome, what McGivney (1993) calls the 'dispositional' obstacles--linked to learners' attitudes, perceptions and motivations--still need to be addressed by tutors and mentors. A crucial aspect of such dispositions in the learner's confidence and its role as an inhibitor or facilitator of learning. Although widely used--most recently in the DfES (2002) publicity about adult literacy gains--the concept of 'confidence' is, in the main, little understood and tends to be used imprecisely and rhetorically. This paper will seek--through the examination of a range of studies involving confidence and cognate concepts, in addition to original research on students learning to teach in the post-school sector--to offer some suggestions for enhancing the management and support of learning in this important sphere of work.     

Training Professionals in Industrial Design. Les Ateliers: a French experience

The Ecole Nationale Superieure de Creation Industnelle, Les Ateliers, was opened in November 1982 under the auspices of the French Ministry of Industry and Culture. This article gives an idea of the aims of this new French industrial design school and the education structure adopted in order to reach them. A case study illustrates the policy of partnership with industry.     

Acquiring Cultural Knowledge for Counselors in Training: A Multifaceted Approach

In the cross-cultural counseling literature many writers have suggested that counselors and counselor trainees should acquire knowledge about ethnic minority populations. More concrete suggestions are needed, however, regarding specific structures through which such knowledge might be gained. In this article the authors describe a multifaceted approach to acquisition of cross-cultural knowledge that is a culmination of experiences and activities the writers have used in a course titled Counseling Ethnic Minorities. This approach is based on the premise that knowledge and cultural sensitivity can be achieved through a combination of cognitive, affective, and behavioral procedures. The course includes assessment of cultural knowledge, reading ethnic literature, multicultural action planning, and small-group presentations. Students taking this course have judged the multifaceted approach to be a valuable experience for acquiring cross-cultural knowledge and for developing cross-cultural sensitivity. Most participants viewed the course as an important beginning to a lifelong process of learning.     

Students With Learning Disabilities: Homework Problems and Promising Practices

Students with learning disabilities are more likely than other students to have problems doing homework. In this article, we describe how deficits in language, attention, memory, and organizational skills as well as in reading, writing, and math affect homework performance. We describe family and school factors that may exacerbate-or ameliorate-their problems as well as the intervention research that has included students with learning disabilities. At this point, there appears to be a huge gap between the strategies successfully applied in intervention studies and teachers' preferences for interventions, a serious issue that spills over and has a negative influence on family life. Nonetheless, an emerging area of intervention research suggests that effective efforts to improve homework completion, accuracy, and test performance may require parental involvement, peer cooperation, self-monitoring and graphing, "real-life" assignments, teachercollaborative problem solving, or all.     

Engaging Preservice School Counselors and Principals in Dialogue and Collaboration

School counselors should be prepared to address student concerns and school problems in collaborative ways and to work cooperatively with school principals. The authors describe an innovative seminar designed to help students in school counseling and in school administration to develop a greater appreciation of the roles, responsibilities, and perspectives of each other in their respective professions.