diff --git a/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/DataFrameComplexTypeSuite.scala b/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/DataFrameComplexTypeSuite.scala
index 06d711f2e240a..0b9e8d2d0405f 100644
--- a/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/DataFrameComplexTypeSuite.scala
+++ b/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/DataFrameComplexTypeSuite.scala
@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ class DataFrameComplexTypeSuite extends QueryTest with SharedSQLContext {
   }
 
   test("SPARK-12477 accessing null element in array field") {
-    val df = sparkContext.parallelize(Seq((Seq("val1", null, "val2"),
+    val df = sqlContext.sparkContext.parallelize(Seq((Seq("val1", null, "val2"),
       Seq(Some(1), None, Some(2))))).toDF("s", "i")
     val nullStringRow = df.selectExpr("s[1]").collect()(0)
     assert(nullStringRow == org.apache.spark.sql.Row(null))