A Model for Predicting the Presence of School Psychology

Abstract

School psychology exists in many countries around the world; however, it is far from ubiquitous. The extant literature offers limited empirical information addressing why school psychology may be present in some countries but not in others. The purpose of this study was to conduct a comparative investigation examining four sociocultural and sociopolitical theories that may help to explain the presence of school psychology within countries around the globe. The results from this study examining 108 different countries revealed that although the socioeconomic development of a country is an important explanatory factor of the presence of school psychology, it does not fully explain the presence of school psychology. Specifically, variables measuring a country’s modern mass cultural values and legacy of expenditures on social programs were independently predictive of the presence of school psychology. The implications and limitations of this study are discussed.