From ex-quota to in-quota: An analysis of guidance counsellors'
perceptions of the impact of 2012 budgetary cutbacks on their
care work across different school types.
Harkin, Liam
(2015)
From ex-quota to in-quota: An analysis of guidance counsellors'
perceptions of the impact of 2012 budgetary cutbacks on their
care work across different school types.
Doctor of Education thesis, Dublin City University.
Baker’s equality discourse (2004, 2009) and Lynch’s affective care dialogue (2002,
2007, 2009) informed this study on the impact of budgetary cutbacks on guidance
in Irish schools, which found that uneven guidance reductions, primarily between
fee-charging schools and schools in the Free Education Scheme (FES), resulted in
an unequal distribution of care and a negative student care experience. From its
inception in the 1970s, guidance in Irish schools had a holistic, equality agenda,
and it is discussed as one means of reducing the impacts o f many inequalities in
schools. While guidance in all schools helps students make choices in their lives,
the thesis showed that it operated differently in fee-charging schools and FES
schools, with greater demands from students for help with personal decisionmaking
and counselling in FES schools and by contrast a greater emphasis on
educational decision-making and career decision-making in fee-charging schools.
Factors such as social class, familial habitus, parent-power, cultural, social and
economic capitals, and institutional habitus were shown to influence young people
and their parents’ decision-making, and in turn the guidance provided in schools.
Care was not distributed equally across all school types. The study demonstrated
that students in FES schools experienced compromised care, due to a large
reduction in counselling appointments. With a reported rise in student mental
health issues, the demand for counselling in FES schools increased, but as these
schools prioritised career guidance, counselling was neglected, the quality of the
service suffered and it became a reactionary crisis-intervention service, mirroring
the trivialisation and neglect of the affective in education (Lynch, 2009). Managing
greater care demands with less time resources also increased guidance counsellors’
stress. The change from an ex-quota to an in-quota guidance allocation thus had an
unequal impact across schools and a negative impact on the quality and distribution
of student care in some school types.