A contextual investigation of the international development of psychology in the school

A survey of the status of school psychology in 54 countries formed the basis of an exploratory study of the mechanisms underlying the development of the field. Relationships between level of professional autonomy, centrality of occupational roles, and the viability of these roles were examined in the countries (N = 54) surveyed.;Multidimensional scaling (MDS) was performed on ratings of similarities in professional autonomy among the countries. The MDS solution indicated that there were two dimensions underlying the ratings: (a) low regulation and high regulation and (b) intraprofessional and extraprofessional sources of influence sanctioning practice.;Ward's minimum variance cluster analysis was used to identify the occupational domains which are central to school psychology. Four domains were identified: Psychological Assessment, Special Education Interventions, Tests and Measurement, and Vocational Guidance. Three peripheral domains were also identified: Systems Interventions; Socialization (teaching values); and Biologically Based Interventions.;Measures on the occupational domains were obtained for the 54 countries and projected onto the MDS space as vectors by means of multiple regression. All occupational domains, except Biologically Based Interventions, were significantly correlated with the two-dimensional representation of professional autonomy.;Relationships between professional autonomy, centrality of occupational roles, and occupational stress were examined. A stepwise discriminant analysis determined that practitioners in countries with lower autonomy were susceptible to occupational stress relating to isolation and lack of resources whereas those in countries with higher autonomy were subject to occupational stress relating to feelings of low personal accomplishment and depersonalization. A planned comparison indicated that occupational stress in high autonomy countries was associated with high centrality (i.e., cohesion, centripetalism) of occupational roles.;Results were interpreted according to I. Altman's contextual/transactional and dialectic analysis of the mechanisms underlying the development of psychology. A model was proposed to illustrate these mechanisms with regard to school psychology's international development. Recommendations for improving upon the analysis by focusing on "neighborhoods" in the MDS space were discussed.