Allocating Opportunity: The Role and Influence of School Counselors in Promoting Access to Advanced Placement Coursework

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 5
  In Poster Session: General Counseling Topics (San Diego)

Abstract

Professional school counselors are positioned to support educational opportunities for all secondary-level students. Student participation in Advanced Placement (AP) programming can be viewed as such an opportunity. School counselors communicate and create access to educational opportunity in a bureaucratic policy environment that shapes how AP opportunity is allocated. This environment induces tension when local policies and norms limit access to AP participation, particularly for marginalized students. The extent to which counselors (a) were enabled or constrained in their ability to create student access to AP coursework, while noting whether they (b) exercised discretionary decision making when implementing AP course-taking policy and (c) perceived their context of practice as just, was examined. Findings identifying counselor enablement and constraint are reported here.

Authors

• Vaughan M. Kusko, Redlands Unified School District

• Ross E. Mitchell, Gallaudet University