A Content Analysis of Counselor Education and Supervision: The Formative Years

Counselor Education and Supervision originated in 1961. Changes in content of the ensuing 25 volumes are indicative of the evolution of the profession. The content of the articles, volumes 0 through 25, was analyzed, producing 51 categories and five cross-referenced categories. Data on authors and type of counselor for whom the article was written were gathered. The discussion of results emphasizes the differences between recent and early volumes of the journal.     

ABILITY FACTORS AS A FUNCTION OF ADVANTAGED AND DISADVANTAGED GROUPS

Preliminary factor analyses of predictor tests in advantaged and disadvantaged groups is recommended as a way of forming a priori expectations concerning validities of the predictors to guide both use and research. Factor analyses of Project Talent ability measures are reported for groups defined by top and bottom quartile placement in intelligence and socio-economic status. There are no important differences in results associated with differences in socio-economic status, but there are fairly numerous differences in loadings for individual measures in groups defined by level of intelligence. Most of these differences can be explained by the characteristics of the scales of measurement. For a small number of measures, however, there is evidence for differences in loadings as a function of the intellectual level of the subjects per se. These latter measures would be expected to have differential validities for similarly selected intelligence groups, but not for socio-economic groups.     

'The Trouble with Our Schools': A media construction of public discourses on Queensland schools

This paper gives an account of competing public discourses on schooling. In particular, it investigates one newspaper's coverage of the release of an educational report. The paper combines interview data with a critical discourse analysis of newspaper texts to show how media reporting of Queensland schools constructed a preferred discourse on education that represented schools as being in crisis, 'in trouble'. The analysis describes how the paper shaped popular opinion on educational policy through the construction of public discourses of crisis in education. Further, the analysis shows how this discourse positioned particular groups as the authoritative voice on standards in Queensland schools. It shows how, at a time when teacher quality was under question, the media constructed a public discourse that diminished the authority of teachers to speak about education policy, granting that authority to the newspaper's editor, who assumed the people's voice on educational issues. This analysis of the construction of public discourses about education policy gives insights into the media's place in educational policy-making. In so doing, the paper adds to the small body of literature that investigates the relationships between the media and education.