Novice school counselors’ role in closing the achievement gap with low-income adolescents

We explored 10 novice school counselors’ experiences working to close the achievement gap with low-income adolescents through interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results suggest that school counselors experienced their role in closing the achievement gap with low-income adolescents as one of (a) systemic discouragement, (b) interactions with students’ home environment, and (c) parallel process advocacy. Implications for school counselors, counselor educators, and future research are included.