Distinguished Indian psychologists talk about opportunities and challenges for American Indians in the field of psychology, offer advice about college preparation and volunteer work, describe culturally sensitive counseling services, and discuss research on cultural influences on Indian adolescents' mental well-being. Universities and…

The 2002 Future of School Psychology Conference called for reform of current models of professional school psychology, including a paradigm shift toward a public health model of practice. This article explores the role of school psychologists in efforts to achieve an integrated public health and public education model for delivering comprehensive…

Educational psychologists find that prior knowledge influences new learning. We examined whether course achievement for introductory psychology students is facilitated or impaired by their prior knowledge of psychology. We administered a pretest exam to 422 students early in the semester and gathered subsequent exam scores and other measures of…

The purpose of this study was to investigate school psychologists' attitudes toward lesbians and gay males. Aspects of school psychologists' knowledge, beliefs, current practices, and levels of preparedness related to issues of sexual orientation were also explored. A sample of 288 school psychologists (215 females and 73 males, mean age = 44…

The current study examined the prevalence of ethnic incongruence in three school psychological services: assessment, consultation, and counseling; the prevalence of diversity training among school psychologists; and practitioners' attitudes about their training experiences. A mail survey was sent to a random sample of 500 school psychologists…

Considering the barriers to discussions of racism, this document starts by acknowledging appreciation for the feedback and insights of the editors of "The Counseling Psychologist" as well as those of the responders. Spanierman and Poteat (2005 [this issue]) note that racist incidents are "most easily comparable with the established notion of…

The expansion of early childhood services has brought increasing recognition of the need to address mental health disorders in young children. The transactional perspective of developmental psychopathology is the basis for review of diagnostic frameworks for young children. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) is…

There is currently an intense focus across our nation on reading and literacy, particularly an increased focus on preventing reading difficulties. This attention comes from diverse constituencies, including policy-makers, researchers, parents, specialists of all varieties (e.g., speech-language pathologists, reading specialists, psychologists),…

Latino children living in the United States are not faring well in an educational system that increasingly is turning to "high-stakes" exams to make important decisions in the lives of students. While some argue that these exams have the potential to equalize educational opportunity, we review information that challenges this view. In this article…

Personal and reflective writing assignments in psychology courses may prompt self-disclosure that presents ethical dilemmas. The literature discusses responsibilities of the psychologist in instances such as disclosure of suicidal ideation or threats of harming others within the context of the therapist-client relationship, but significantly less…

In their comments regarding Goodman, Liang, Helms, Latta, Sparks, and Weintraub's article "Training Counseling Psychologists as Social Justice Agents: Feminist and Multicultural Principles in Action," Kiselica, Palmer, Thompson and Shermis, and Watts offered a number of useful suggestions for elaborating on social justice theory,…

Adolescents are in crisis in school, home, and in the community. With an increasing array of problems, from alcohol and drug addiction to teenage pregnancy, the nation's youth are facing difficult challenges. In particular, family problems experienced by adolescents alone can seem daunting, with such issues as divorce, abuse, and discord changing…

Religion and spirituality are important aspects of multicultural competency for therapists to consider given the religious culture in America. Researchers have found that more than 90% of Americans claim either a Protestant or Catholic religious affiliation (Keller, 2000), 40% of Americans attend religious services on a weekly basis, and more than…

The authors describe the development of the California Brief Multicultural Competence Scale (CBMCS). The 21-item CBMCS was derived from principal component analysis, item content validated by a panel of experts, and confirmatory factor analyses. Several studies provided internal consistency, subscale intercorrelations, criterion-related…

Since the report of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher education (1997) on university teaching in the UK, there has been increasing emphasis on the professionalization of university teaching. Following the expansion of higher education, and widening student diversity there is even more of a need for teachers to teach well. Pedagogical…