School-Based Counseling, Policy, Policy Research, and Implications in Turkey and Other Middle Eastern Countries

Abstract

In this chapter, an overview of school counseling in Middle Eastern countries, namely, Egypt, Iran, Israel, and Turkey, is given. A brief history of school counseling in these countries is provided in order to understand current policy implementation, identify challenges and barriers to advancement, and address policy and research needs for the future development of the profession. This literature review revealed that unique larger societal events have impacted the development of the profession of school counseling in these countries over time. In addition, they have some commonalities with regard to challenges that the school counseling profession as a whole faces, such as the need for a clearer professional vision, a legislative process for the accreditation of school counselor training programs and school counselor licensure, policy-level solutions to alleviate high counselor-student ratio, and culturally relevant theories, measurement instruments, or techniques used in school counseling. Lastly, the Middle East is a conflict-prone region. Often, school-aged children are affected by war, internal violence, terrorist attacks, and political instability. Due to this fact, there is a need to train school counselors as qualified to respond to larger societal traumas. Although there is still room for improvement, the school counseling profession in these countries is promising and rapidly evolving.