Abstract

This study will focus on the professional identity of school counseling, which is a key function in Israeli schools. Forming a professional identity is part of the process of professional development that begins with academic training and continues throughout one’s professional career. Professional identity distinguishes between different occupations and provides practitioners with a safe base that lets them better understand their work and form a team spirit within their field of occupation. The research literature indicates an association between one’s professional identity and her professional functioning and success, sense of stability, confidence, and pride in practicing the occupation. The professional identity of school counseling is related to gender. This is a predominantly female occupation and most of its practitioners in Israel are women.
 
 Few studies have been conducted on the professional identity of school counselors (Note 1) and its impact on the quality of their work. It appears that the definition of the school counselor’s role is neither clear nor unambiguous, both in Israel and elsewhere, and this affects the professional identity of counselors and the quality of their work. The current study included semi-structured interviews with 15 school counselors, in which they spoke about the structure of their work, their professional vision, satisfaction, and sense of self-fulfillment as a result of their job, as well as their professional self-efficacy.
 
 The research findings show that the structure of the counselor’s work, her role definition and workload, are related to her professional identity, including how she perceives the counseling occupation, her satisfaction and sense of self-fulfillment. Based on the interviews, no differences were found between the narratives of counselors with different levels of seniority in the profession with regard to professional identity, satisfaction, and self-fulfillment. The research findings indicate the need to define the school counseling occupation and its place in the school in order to help school counselors establish a clearer professional identity, with the aim of adapting the role to the challenges of the school system in the 21st century, in the world in general and in Israel in particular.

Highlights

  • 1.1 School Counseling in Israel—A PortraitAccording to the definition provided by Israel’s Ministry of Education, school counseling is a professional service located within the school and aimed at promoting the functioning and mental well-being of students and staff

  • In the current study we shall attempt to examine, for the first time in Israel and similar to the research method employed by Alves and Gazzola (2011), whether school counselors in Israel too display a direct correlation between their role definition in the field and their professional identity, satisfaction, and professional efficacy

  • The findings showed that new counselors in the profession are slightly more confused, have difficulty with the role definition that differs from what they had thought and learned in academia, they have a lower individual and collective professional identity, and sometimes they feel lost

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Summary

School Counseling in Israel—A Portrait

According to the definition provided by Israel’s Ministry of Education, school counseling is a professional service located within the school and aimed at promoting the functioning and mental well-being of students and staff. The definition of the counselor’s role and the extent of her position change according to the needs of the school in which she is employed. Counselors’ routine work involves wide target populations within the school (principals, coordinators, teaching staff, homeroom teachers) as well as relevant elements outside the school (psychologists, social workers, and other community workers) (Deshevsky, 2009). Due to the complexity of her role, the counselor must balance individual work and systemic activity and is required to combine the execution of planned tasks and providing prompt responses with unexpected demands (Deshevsky, 2009). Despite the change in its status in recent years, various issues continue to challenge the formation of a clear professional identity within the occupation of school counseling and among its practitioners (Erhard, 2014)

What Is a Professional Identity?
Professional Identity in School Counseling
Research Population
Procedure
Analysis of the Interviews
Findings
Discussion
Full Text
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