The handbook of international school psychology

School psychology, the professional application of psychology to education environments and programs, has evolved during the last hundred years to become a critically valuable source of support for the learning and development of children and youth throughout the world. This review of The Handbook of International School Psychology found it to be the best available source for understanding the profession's history of development, nature, present status characteristics and the challenges and potentials for its future internationally and for the diverse sample of 43 countries included for specific attention. The book's editor-authors and country chapter authors have produced quite interesting and useful material in a highly readable form. The review gives the future of the profession and its yet un-reached potential particular attention, noting constraints limiting the profession's practices and contributions such as traditionally heavy emphasis on the provision of assessment and preventive/corrective interventions focused on problems in learning and students with disabilities, oversight and control by non-psychologists and narrowly dedicated funding. Suggestions are made for a more expansive future of contributions by clarifying the professions' purposes, broadening the meaning of special needs, employing an assets model, bringing interventions to the foreground, shifting to a stronger internal locus of control and drafting a new social contract with communities emphasizing promotion of the full healthy development of all children and youth. Recommendations are also made for transforming the Handbook into a living internet process of information provision, discourse on issues, consensus development, resource support and guidance for the profession.