An Examination of the Impact of Student Race, Gender, and Socioeconomic Status on School Counselors' Decisions to Place Students in Alternative Learning Programs

The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) National Model (ASCA, 2012) and ASCA Ethical Standards (ASCA, 2016) highlight the relationship between school counseling, advocacy, and social justice. It is the school counselor’s duty to address inequitable policies, procedures, and conditions that may limit students’ personal/social and academic development, college access, and career readiness (ASCA, 2012). Additionally, school counselors should be unbiased in their decision-making (ASCA, 2016). An experimental design in which participants responded to one of eight vignettes was used to examine the impact of student race, gender, and socioeconomic status (SES) on practicing school counselors’ (N=334) decisions to place students in ALPs for disciplinary reasons. A factorial analysis of variance revealed no statistically significant differences in school counselors’ likelihood of placing students in ALPs for disciplinary reasons based on students’ race, gender, or SES. A bivariate correlation also revealed a statistically significant positive relationship between school counselors’ belief in a just world, as measured by the Global Belief in a Just World Scale (GBJWS; Lipkus, 1991), and likelihood of referring students to ALPs for disciplinary reasons.