School Psychology Program Characteristics, Student Race, and Gender

Year: 2024

Issue: Vol. 40 Issue. 2

Title: School Psychology Program Characteristics, Student Race, and Gender

Citation: King, B. L., Michelsonn, L. R., Hulac, D. M., Aspiranti, K. B., Odiorne, S. C., & Boetel, A. (2024) School Psychology Program Characteristics, Student Race, and Gender. School Psychology Training and Pedagogy, 40 (2), 63-77. 

Abstract: For decades, school psychology professionals and students have primarily been White women. This disproportionality may result in the needs of BIPOC students being overlooked and under-represented within school settings. While the reasons for this disproportional representation are varied, one of the most important places to understand this difference involves the training programs for school psychologists. All school psychology training programs take place within institutions of higher education that are authorized to bestow graduate degrees. Yet, these institutions may be different from one another. Before understanding the reasons for the racial and gender disproportionality within the field, it is worth investigating some of the variables that differentiate universities. Three such designating variables include the region of the United States, the university’s Carnegie classification, and whether the university is public or private. In this study, the researchers investigated how these three variables related to a university’s contribution to the diversity of the field; more specifically, the enrollment rates of school psychology graduate students based on race and gender. 

Keywords: diversity, school psychology, graduate students, training programs

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