The Epistemology and Ontology of School Counselling in a Colonial Ethnocentric Education System

This paper critiques the politics of Israeli school counselling and the values underlying this profession in a settler-colonial context. It addresses the research question: How do economic, sociocultural, and political forces shape Israeli school counselling? Deploying post-structural frameworks of power/knowledge, as well as postcolonial and decolonial thoughts, we conduct a discourse analysis of the Israeli school counselling profession, unpacking its ideologies and functions in a settler-colonial region. Using Foucauldian genealogy as a methodology, we analyse ninety-four interdisciplinary archival documents, historical incidents, and policies to uncover the political-economic values and morality embedded in school counselling. Our findings reveal that settler-colonial practices and Zionist political-economic interests have shaped the profession, turning school counsellors into subsidiary authorities that perpetuate Zionist ideology and justify colonisation through mental health interventions. In conclusion, this research illuminates that Israeli school counselling is not a culturally neutral or universally beneficent profession but, instead, a paradigmatic case of how mental health professions can be instrumentalised by the state to further colonial and ethnonationalist agendas. Additionally, this study highlights the importance of critiquing the political-economic agendas that influence professional institutions, educational and mental health leadership roles, and their broader societal implications.