Academic Activities Relating to School Counseling in Japan:

Abstract

Contract research on the utilization of school counselors began in 1995 . The present review focuses on trends in academic activities in Japan from 1995 to 2019 that are related to school counseling, systematically reviewing results from that research, focusing on changes in the number of research papers on school counseling published in academic journals and bulletins between 1995 and 2019 , and on the content of the research papers published in academic journals during that time period. The articles were divided into a first group, which was research papers published between 1995 and 2000 , and a second group, research papers published between 2001 and 2019 . The analysis was conducted that way because 2001 was the official beginning of the employment of school counselors in public junior high schools. The results indicated that the number of journal and bulletin articles published after 2001 was significantly more than before that year. However, despite an annual increase in the number of school counselors starting in 2001 , no increasing trend in the number of publications since 2001 was found. A quantitative text analysis of the content of the research papers in academic journals indicated that the studies that were published before 2001 investigated or evaluated the roles and functions of school counselors in schools, whereas the studies published starting in 2001 mainly investigated support for students who were not attending school and characteristics and functions of counseling rooms. The most recent publications have focused on facilitating practical cooperation and collaboration between school counselors and teachers. In the context of the present results, the discussion deals with issues related to future studies of school counseling.