Awareness of immigration policy among high school counselors in Missouri : implications for undocumented college-bound students
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The immigration process in the United States has undergone constant changes and evolutions, each with its own rules, regulations, protocols, nuances, and consequences. Keeping track of those changes is a challenge for even the legislators who are charged with regulating and monitoring it. Undocumented students, who have arrived here under many sets of circumstances, understandably may find it confusing and challenging as well. Consequently, they look to their school counselors to help them make sense of it all. This study examines the knowledge base of high school counselors within the state of Missouri and explored the sources and resources they rely on for the information they use as they attempt to make sense of the uncertainty and ambiguity of the laws that affect their undocumented students. The findings of this study demonstrate widely varying degrees of knowledge among counselors in Missouri: from 87 percent correct on one policy to 82 percent incorrect on another. Overall, counselors were 44 percent accurate in their knowledge. Findings also demonstrate that counselors rely on state and federal departments of education, professional development, and peers/colleagues as their primary sources of information. Statistical analysis shows that the source of information matters. For example, those who indicated that professional development was their primary source scored 100 percent accuracy on a specific policy question. These findings make it evident that there is a need to improve Missouri high school counselors' knowledge of federal and state immigration policy via high-quality, timely professional development.
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Ed. D.