Advocacy-Professional School Counselors Closing the Achievement Gap Through Empowerment: A Response to Hipolito-Delgado and Lee

Abstract

The article by Hipolito-Delgado and Lee, Empowerment Theory for the Professional School Counselor: A Manifesto for What Really Matters, addresses a timely topic and highlights the critical need for a comprehensive, multicultural school guidance program. More important, it calls attention to the need for 21st-century professional school counselors to engage in effective practice with students who are marginalized and oppressed, including those who are gay/lesbian, students with disabilities, and students of color. The notion of applying empowerment theory to the role of professional school counselors and a comprehensive, multicultural school guidance program offers hope for better serving some of our country's most marginalized and oppressed students. It is important to call attention to the needs of these students because it is easy for students who are often on the periphery to be forgotten and, accordingly, underserved or inappropriately served. In an era of supposed increased accountability, including the Education Trust's Transforming the School Counselor Initiative and the federal No Child Left Behind Act, widening achievement gaps, and ambiguity regarding the professional school counselor role, Hipolito-Delgado and Lee's article presents a compelling case for a paradigm shift. In their article, the authors employ Paulo Freire's theoretical framework of humanizing pedagogy to develop a theoretical framework they refer to as empowerment theory. Hipolito-Delgado and Lee offer a unique way for professional school counselors to frame the empowerment of marginalized individuals. Using the pedagogy of the oppressed and applying it to the discipline of school counseling allows professional school counselors to view empowerment multidimensionally--for individuals, groups/parents, and the community. The nontraditional application of empowerment theory to the role and work of school counselors is useful and liberating. Several authors (Bemak & Chung, 2005; Bryan, 2005; Holcomb-McCoy, 2004; Lee, 2005) have contributed to the current literature that examines the professional school counselor's role of advocate, champion of social justice, social change agent, and urban school counselor. In order to empower marginalized students to increase achievement and be successful, these advocacy roles have been identified by the Education Trust, the American School Counselor Association (ASCA), and the American Counseling Association. With that said, professional school counselors' perspectives can potentially be shaped or influenced by applying Freire's empowerment theory to their roles. If professional school counselors share these empowerment values, their perception and thinking of marginalized students, followed by their actions, may result in a systemic effect. This includes the school, individual students, parents, and the community and would foster a school climate that values empowerment and promotes access and equity for all students. Hipolito-Delgado and Lee in their article speak to several key issues surrounding the achievement gap as it relates to underrepresented or marginalized groups. First, they explore various obstacles to academic achievement that many students from ethnic backgrounds and other marginalized groups encounter. These include a history of oppression, racism, and marginalization in the American school system and society, which must be understood before applying the empowerment theory. The reality is that many professional school counselors are of the majority race and presumably have been socialized in the same American, ethnocentric curricula and school system that disserves marginalized students. What would motivate professional school counselors to want to change their behavior? Where does the empowerment theory allow for or recognize that it seems to put too much emphasis on the ability of the marginalized individual student to transcend the impact of classism, racism, oppression, White privilege, and homophobia? …