Understanding School Counseling Internships From a Communities of Practice Framework

Abstract

School counseling interns are on the boundary of communities of practice. This study explored how school counselors develop competence during internship experiences by analyzing an online dialogue taking place among a small group of interns. Feelings of being on the boundary intensified with unsatisfactory supervisor‐intern relationships (lack of mutuality of engagement) or when interns experienced a sense of powerlessness to effect change at their internship placements (negotiating their repertoire). As boundary dwellers, interns turned to peers to make sense of their experiences (accountability to the joint enterprise). Implications include the importance of the supervisor‐intern relationship and the relationships among internship peers.

Supervisors' Use of Reinforcement, Reframing, and Advice to Re-Author the Supervisory Narrative through E-mail Supervision

“…Although use of e-mail supervision has increased (Butler & Constantine, 2006;Woodside et al, 2009), its prevalence remains unknown. Moreover, investigations have yet to explore how the computer-mediated modality may impact general supervisory outcomes.…”

“…As such, counselor education programs are increasingly incorporating computermediated supervisory modalities into their training programs (Butler & Constantine, 2006;Woodside, Ziegler, & Paulus, 2009). In an investigation of e-mail correspondence as a supplement to clinical supervision, Clingerman and Bernard (2004) analyzed the frequency and content of 19 supervisees' weekly messages to their supervisor.…”

The Professional Peer Membership of School Counselors and the Resources Used Within Their Decision-Making

“…He defined work engagement tasks that are necessary to transition into full membership within that community. Woodside, Ziegler, and Paulus (2009) applied the communities of practice research of Wenger (1998) to a study exploring 52 messages exchanged between five female school counseling interns over a 2-week period. The findings indicated that school counseling interns perceived numerous barriers in fulfilling work engagement tasks including: (a) a participant's "ability to interact with other members of the community"; (b) their development of "a shared repertoire of resources for negotiating meaning," including words, concepts, and ways of doing things; and (c) a sense of "accountability to the joint enterprise of the practice" (Woodside et al, 2009, pp.…”

“…Although scholars have called for the enhancement of the professional identity development of counselors (e.g., Gale & Austin, 2003), there remains uncertainty about how to operationalize and assess professional identity, as well as how to understand professional identity within specific systemic contexts (Ronnestad & Skovholt, 2003) or 'communities of practice' (Woodside, Ziegler, & Paulus, 2009). Defining community of practice and professional peer group membership is more complicated in the area of school counseling because school counselors are professional counselors, but also part of the educational team.…”

How to Construct Shared Repertoire in Older Adults’ Communities of Practice

“…Mutual engagement refers to members' interactions through which the individual spontaneously devotes himself or herself to particular community tasks to elicit other members' ongoing interactions (Guldberg and Mackness 2009). Joint enterprise is a concept to link different participants' ambitions, ideals and goals together, in order to achieve a shared vision or to implement a common value (Woodside et al 2009). Shared repertoire is formed by members' ongoing interactions (Cuddapah and Clayton 2011), through which people in a CoP will know each other well and enjoy being together.…”