School counselors in the classroom: A systematic review

Abstract

The American School Counseling Association has continuously defined school counselors as having a role in the classroom across four different iterations of the ASCA Model. And yet, the amount of scholarly production is limited along with the amount of time school counselors report actually spending time in the classroom with students. Further, the social-emotional learning (SEL) movement, among others, has encouraged the utilization of teachers in classrooms to provide lessons and interventions related to the social-emotional development of students rather than school counselors who have been trained to do so. The current study examines the literature on school counselor-facilitated classroom interventions over the past 30 years utilizing systematic review procedures to do so. The results indicate that only 40 classroom intervention studies have been published in peer-reviewed journals over the past 30 years. Implications for counselor education scholars and school counselors are discussed.