parents, and teachers love her. She has been a school psychology practitioner for many years. Wanda needs an occasional push from her colleagues to keep current with changing practices, however.
SUSAN JACOB
Ann Arbor, Michigan
DAWN M. DECKER
Central Michigan University
Mt. Pleasant, Michigan
ELIZABETH T. LUGG
Illinois State University
Normal, Illinois
ELENA DIAMOND
Lewis & Clark College
Portland, Oregon
Acknowledgments
The first edition of Ethics and Law for School Psychologists would not have come to fruition without the support and scholarship of Dr. Timothy S. Hartshorne as co-author. Tim, we thank you, and wish you the best in your upcoming retirement from Central Michigan University.
We are grateful for the excellent support provided by our Wiley editor, Darren Lalonde, and Monica Rogers, associate managing editor.
We also very much appreciate the research assistance provided by Central Michigan University school psychology program doctoral student Sarah M. Sykes. Sarah—we couldn’t have finished by our submission deadline without your careful work.
Finally, a special thank you also is due to family members for their encouragement and patience during the completion of the book.
About the Companion Website
This book is accompanied by a companion website for instructors. www.wiley.com\go\jacob\ethicsandlaw8e
This website includes:
Instructor’s Manual and Test Banks
PowerPoint Slides
Chapter 1 ETHICS IN SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY: AN INTRODUCTION
Who are school psychologists? As Fagan (2014) observed, the term school psychologist has been defined in many different ways. For the purposes of this book, we adopted the definition developed by the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). School psychologists are professionals who
apply expertise in mental health, learning, and behavior, to help children and youth succeed academically, socially, behaviorally, and emotionally. School psychologists partner with families, teachers, school administrators, and other professionals to create safe, healthy, and supportive learning environments that strengthen connections between home, school, and the community. (NASP, n.d.-a, p. 1)
As the decisions made by school psychologists have an impact on human lives, and thereby on society, the practice of school psychology rests on the public’s trust. To build and maintain society’s trust in school psychology, it is essential that every school psychologist is sensitive to the ethical and legal components of their work, knowledgeable regarding broad ethical principles and rules of professional conduct, and committed to a proactive stance in ethical thinking and conduct.
QUALITY CONTROL IN SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY
Four sources of “quality control” protect the rights and welfare of students and other recipients of school psychological services. Professional codes of ethics for the delivery of psychological services are discussed in this chapter. Chapter 2 provides an introduction to law that protects the rights of students and their parents in the school setting. Educational law provides a second source of quality control. Chapter 2 also addresses the credentialing of school psychologists, a third mechanism of quality assurance. Credentialing helps to ensure that psychologists meet specified qualifications before they are granted a legal sanction to practice (Fagan & Wise, 2007). Graduate-program accreditation is an additional mechanism of quality control. Program accreditation helps to ensure the adequate preparation of school psychologists during their graduate coursework and field experiences.
This chapter focuses on the what and why of professional ethics, ethics education and competencies, and the codes of ethics of the NASP and the American Psychological Association (APA). Four broad ethical principles are introduced along with an ethical-legal decision-making model. We also describe ethics committees and sanctions for unethical conduct.
WHAT AND WHY OF PROFESSIONAL ETHICS
The term ethics generally refers to a system of principles of conduct that guide the behavior of an individual. Ethics derives from the Greek word ethos, meaning character or custom, and the phrase ta ethika, which Plato and Aristotle used to describe their studies of Greek values and ideals (Solomon, 1984). Accordingly,
ethics is first of all a concern for individual character, including what we call “being a good person,” but it is also a concern for the overall character of an entire society, which is still appropriately called its “ethos.” Ethics is participation in, and an understanding of, an ethos, the effort to understand the social rules which govern and limit our behavior. (p. 5)
A system of ethics develops in the context of a particular society or culture and is connected closely to social customs. Ethics is composed of a range of acceptable (or unacceptable) social and personal behaviors, from rules of etiquette to more basic rules of society. The terms ethics and morality are often used interchangeably. However, according to philosophers, the term morality refers to a subset of ethical rules of special importance. Solomon (1984) suggested that moral principles are “the most basic and inviolable rules of a society.” Moral rules are thought to differ from other aspects of ethics in that they are more important, fundamental, universal, rational, and objective (pp. 6–7). W. D. Ross (1930), a twentieth-century Scottish philosopher, identified a number of moral duties of the ethical person: nonmaleficence, fidelity, beneficence, justice, and autonomy. These moral principles have provided a foundation for the ethical codes of psychologists and other professionals (Bersoff & Koeppl, 1993).
Our focus here is on applied or practical professional ethics, the application of broad ethical principles and specific rules to the problems that arise in professional practice (Beauchamp & Childress, 2019). Applied ethics in school psychology is, thus, a combination of ethical principles and rules, ranging from more basic rules to rules of professional etiquette, that guide the conduct of the practitioner in their professional interactions with others. Furthermore, although school psychologists are employed in a variety of settings, in this text we emphasize the special challenges of school-based practice.
Professionalism and Ethics
Professionalization has been described as:
the process by which an occupation, usually on the basis of a claim to special competence and a concern for the quality of its work and benefits to
