Brown S.D., Lent R. (Editors). Career development and counseling: putting theory and research to work

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

576 S

PECIAL

EEDS AND

PPLICATIONS

were also noted in terms of race/ethnicity. For example, African Americans had

the lowest labor force participation (76%) followed by Hispanics (80%) and

Whites (84%). Racial-ethnic differences in unemployment were also noted by the

BLS, with out-of-school African Americans facing the highest unemployment rate

(22%), followed by Hispanics (12%) and Whites (10%; BLS, 2002).

When specifically looking at high school dropouts, these numbers show even

wider divergence. As already noted, the unemployment rate for high school

dropouts is 36% (BLS, 2002). Roughly 24% of women and 18% of men who drop

out of high school are unemployed (BLS, 2002). This difference may indicate that

men and women drop out of high school under different circumstances. Accord-

ing to the BLS (2000), employment is the goal for both men and women who leave

high school and enter the labor force. However, women additionally face the re-

sponsibilities of child care and parenting more often than the men in this same

sample.

The Education Trust (2000) reported that dropout rates also vary significantly

by race and socioeconomic status (SES). Specifically, approximately 3% of

Whites, 5% of African Americans, and 10% of Latinos drop out of high school an-

nually. Native American statistics are not reported by either the BLS or the Edu-

cation Trust, but Northern Arizona University (2003) reported Native American

dropout rates to be approximately 30%. The dropout rate in the 1990s ranged be-

tween 9% and 12% for individuals from a low SES group and between 1% and 3%

for people in a high SES bracket.

OCIAL AND

AMILIAL

HARACTERISTICS OF

ORK

-B

OUND

OUTH

Work-bound youth make up some of the primary infrastructure of our country

(Herr, 1995). Despite the lack of resources we make available to them to fulfill

their roles, as a society, it is clear that we cannot operate without their presence.

Herr (1997) stated that “employment-bound students constitute such an impor-

tant proportion of the labor force, certainly of the technical, skilled, clerical, re-

tailing, and distribution system of the nation, that their needs must be given

national, state, and local priority” (p. 5). To meet the needs of work-bound youth,

we must understand some of the possible characteristics (beyond demographic

information) that make up success and failure within this population.

For example, Kenny, Blustein, Chaves, Grossman, and Gallagher (2003) looked

at a series of variables believed to predict school engagement, career aspirations,

and work role salience among inner-city school youth. The variables of social sup-

port, familial (kinship) support, and perceived barriers were shown to statistically

predict the three dependent variables. Kenny et al.’s study looked at

perceived

barriers as they relate to school and career. A common theme in the school-to-

work literature is barriers related to discrimination, gender, and parenthood.

Discrimination can take the form of racial or ethnic discrimination, both real

(Wilson, 1996) and perceived (Flores & O’Brien, 2002; McWhirter, 1997). Similar

issues are present with real and perceived gender discrimination (Flores &

O’Brien, 2002; Maynard, 1995) and the perceived discrimination and actual

poverty of single young parents. For example, Maynard found that even five years

after giving birth to a child, 43% of teenage mothers and their children were liv-

ing at or below the poverty line. Maynard also found that approximately 30% of

teenage parents drop out of high school.

c24.qxd 8/5/04 9:30 AM Page 576

Broadening Our Understanding of Work-Bound Youth: A Challenge 577

Finally, all work-bound youth share one characteristic: their youth—a factor

that might work against them with many employers. A passage in the seminal

port, The Forgotten Half: Non-College Youth in America, reads:

The basic truth faced by too many youth is that regardless of how well schools do

their job and regardless of how well high school graduates learn basic skills, most

large, established employers seldom hire recent high school graduates for career-

ladder positions, even at the entry-level. (William T. Grant, 1988, p. 26)

The APA’s (1999) Report of the School-to-Work Task Force noted that another bar-

rier that needs to be addressed within the school-to-work transition is related to

the nature of jobs available in our economy. Specifically, they noted that the

largest growth areas in employment are in jobs dealing with computers and tech-

nology. However, the degree to which schools teach these skills, and more di

rectly

addressed by the APA, the degree to which girls gain skills in computers and

technology, impacts the success of the school-to-work transition.

The APA task force on school-to-work transition is not the first to discuss a

model of school-to-work that includes the impact of perceived employment op-

portunities on school achievement and meaningful employment of youth. In fact,

the rocky relationship among the three variables has often been discussed (Bel-

lair & Roscigno, 2000; Blustein et al., 1997; Hartnagel, 1998). In a qualitative study

of students making a school-to-work transition, Blustein et al. found that stu-

dents who are seeking work after leaving high school perceive that their course-

work is not relevant to gainful employment. Bellair and his colleagues have also

consistently made a link between perception of a lack of employment opportuni-

ties and delinquency in adolescence (Bellair & Roscigno, 2000; Bellair, Roscigno,

& McNulty, 2003; see also Baron & Hartnagel, 1997; Crutchfield & Pitchford, 1997;

Hartnagel, 1998).

Finally, it is important to discuss youth who have immigrated to the United

States from other countries. According to the BLS report titled Trends in Youth

ployment: Data from the Current Population Survey (2000), youth born outside the

United States are less likely to be employed. Indeed, immigrant youth face a

range of general and country-specific barriers. General barriers can include ESL

difficulties, discrimination, lack of (U.S.-based) job search skills, and lack of com-

munity contacts to assist with employment networking. There is a surprising lack

of research and programs offered by governmental agencies concerning the ca-

reer paths of immigrant youth.

THE TRANSITION FROM SCHOOL TO WORK

According to Ray Marshall, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, “America has the

worst school-to-work transition process of any industrialized nation (reported in

Wilson, 1996, p. 216).” There are few systematic services in place to help high

school students and graduates make the transition to work. Further, many Amer-

ican employers are reluctant to hire youth until they have had some work experi-

ence, particularly for jobs that are accompanied by benefits, adequate salaries,

and advancement opportunities. Wilson argued that this delay in hiring work-

bound youth has several negative consequences for both youth and the U.S. labor

force. Specifically, it hampers the ability of employers to influence new workers

c24.qxd 8/5/04 9:30 AM Page 577

578 S

PECIAL

EEDS AND

PPLICATIONS

during their earliest years of work, it eliminates the connection employers have to

schools that would allow them to communicate about the changing needs of the

workplace, and it separates school achievement from workplace achievement, un-

dermining at least some of the incentive for academic success (Wilson, 1996).

Historically, the field of career counseling has contributed to the emphasis on the

work transition of college-bound youth, demonstrated by the extensive attention

paid to the career development experience of college students throughout the ap-

plied and empirical literature base. However, efforts by numerous authors (Blustein

et al., 2000; Lent, O’Brien, & Fassinger, 1998; Solberg, Howard, Blustein, & Close,

2002; Worthington & Juntunen, 1997) have sought to remedy this bias, and the result

is a growing understanding of the school-to-work transition and increased potential

to provide valuable interventions for work-bound youth. Of particular importance

are the contributions of vocational psychology to the theoretical understanding of

the school-to-work transition. A 1999 special issue of the Career Development Quar-

terly (Lent & Worthington, 1999) is an essential contribution to this topic. The vol-

ume highlights the several ways career counseling can both inform and be informed

by school-to-work issues. Certainly, the authors make it clear that there is a role for

vocational psychology within school-to-work efforts. Yet, as the following discus-

sion demonstrates, that role has not been easy to define or claim.

CHOOL

-W

ORK

OLICY

: E

CONOMIC AND

ROGRAM

EVELOPMENT

MPLICATIONS

The transition from school to work is a developmental process experienced by

most youth, and counselors are typically focused on what is most likely to assist

a given individual in making a successful transition. This may occur within a for-

mal school-to-work (STW) program or on an as-needed basis within or outside

the school setting. Nonetheless, it is important to recognize that the STW transi-

tion, as a social rather than personal experience, exists within a political and eco-

nomic context.

Economic Implications As an educational reform effort, the STW transition has

been addressed through numerous acts of legislative and federal appropriations,

relying on various programs and interventions, beginning with the Smith-Hughes

Act of 1917, which mandated the first federal support for vocational education in

the United States. The Vocational Education Act of 1963 (and expansions in 1968

and 1976), the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act of 1984 (renewed in 1990

and 1998), and the School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA) of 1994 have all

had a significant effect on the structure of vocational education (Rojewski,

2002),

now widely referred to as career and technical education (CTE). For additional

information on these policy initiatives, see Blustein et al. (2000), Rojewski (2002),

and Worthington and Juntunen (1997). Currently, the Workforce Investment Act

(WIA) of 1998 mandates three separate streams of funding to streamline employ-

ment and training services: youth, adults, and displaced workers. At least 30% of

funding from the youth stream must be allocated to non-school youth, but the re-

maining 70% can be used to support in-school youth in employment training,

with an emphasis on at-risk youth.

The nature of work has changed, from farms and factories to technology that

spans international boundaries. But the emphasis of the STWOA, Perkins III, and

c24.qxd 8/5/04 9:30 AM Page 578

Broadening Our Understanding of Work-Bound Youth: A Challenge 579

the WIA echo the 1917 Smith-Hughes Act by mandating secondary education

programs designed to better prepare youth to be effective members of the labor

force. It is important to remember that the motivation behind these initiatives is

largely economic; even with an emphasis on reaching all students and serving the

underserved, the goal is to better prepare workers for the labor force, not neces-

sarily to make the labor force more accessible or responsible to workers.

To meet that economic goal, each of these government programs has been ac-

companied by significant federal, state, and local funds. However, the resources

dedicated to support work-bound youth are still less than 10% of the resources

afforded those who complete college (Worthington & Juntunen, 1997). Based on

information published by the United States General Accounting Office (GAO,

2003a, 2003b), federal support of approximately $950 per student is available for

each work-bound student, compared to approximately $11,744 for each college

student (of which roughly 75% is from federal loans that will likely be repaid in

the future). Further, a comparison of allocations between 1999 and 2003 demon-

strates only a nominal increase, and in some cases a decrease, in funding each

year (GAO, 2003a).

Implications for Program Development Several common guiding principles exist

within the aforementioned collection of STW policies and initiatives. In one way

or another, each called for an integration of academic and career education, a

strategy for coordinating the STW transition, training in skills that meet the labor

force needs of the day, and revisions in programming to accommodate changing

workforce demographics (Rojewski, 2002). However, the initiatives themselves

did not identify the specific skills that youth would need to be successful contrib-

utors to the workforce.

Those skills were identified by the Secretary’s Commission for Achieving Nec-

essary Skills (SCANS), which produced a set of five competencies and a three-part

foundation of skills deemed necessary for successful job performance, even though

they are not generally part of the traditional curriculum leading to a high school

diploma (SCANS, 1992). The five competencies, which are considered essential

workplace know-how, are the ability to productively use (1) resources, (2) interper-

sonal skills, (3) information, (4) systems, and (5) technology. The three foundation

skills that must be achieved are (1) basic skills, such as reading, writing, mathe-

matics, and listening; (2) thinking skills, such as the ability to learn, reason, and

solve problems; and (3) personal qualities, including responsibility, self-esteem,

and integrity.

The recommendations gathered from the SCANS (1992) report reflect an im-

portant change in focus for educational reform (Blustein et al., 2000). Although

supporting the responsibility of schools to prepare youth for work, the SCANS re-

port also provided specific recommendations for industry. Employers were ex-

plicitly encouraged to change their approach to human resource development.

Instead of considering only which individual was the best applicant for a given

position, emphasis was placed on the responsibility of employers to develop

human resources in the firm, the community, and the nation.

With the common goals of educational reform initiatives and an articulated

set of skills addressing the roles of both schools and employers, the basic princi-

ples of coordinating the STW transition would appear to be in place. However, the

differing emphases of government and educational reform initiatives have, not

c24.qxd 8/5/04 9:30 AM Page 579

580 S

PECIAL

EEDS AND

PPLICATIONS

surprisingly, generated a broad array of specific programs designed to facilitate

the transition from school to work. Further, these programs vary on the basis of

the needs of individual communities and school districts.

Nonetheless, seven contemporary models of career and technical education

have been identified by Blustein et al. (2000) and Rojewski (2002): tech prep, ca-

reer academies, youth apprenticeships, school-based enterprises, cooperative ed-

ucation (noted only by Rojewski, 2002), career pathways (described in Blustein

et al., 2000, as occupation-academic cluster programs), and integrated vocational

and academic education.

Also known as 2 + 2 programs, tech prep programs emphasize technology-

lated instruction and occupations, generally by linking the last two years of

high school with the first two years of community college. This leads to an asso-

ciate degree or certificate in the specific career area. Math, science, technology,

and communications are the common academic core and are seen as being rele-

vant for all career areas. This experience combines academic rigor with applied

instruction and prepares students for continuing education to the baccalaureate

degree as well.

Career academies are school-within-a-school programs that focus on a specific

industry, wherein a small number of students move as a cohort through most

coursework and on-the-job training in the industry. A team of educators that

stays with them throughout their education teaches the cohort, and employers

provide ongoing training specific to the workplace. The emphasis on career fields

provides some flexibility for students, and there is an assumption that the career

focus might increase retention of at-risk students.

A variation on career academies, occupation-academic cluster programs are larger

programs that allow all students in a given high school to take courses that are

linked to a cluster of occupations. Students take introductory, career-related

courses and then pursue work-based learning. Career pathways are mandated in

several states (Castellano, Stringfield, & Stone, 2002). They result in a high school

curriculum that is organized around a cluster of occupations that require similar

skills and knowledge but may differ in terms of required education and training

(e.g., engineering, manufacturing, and industrial technology can prepare a stu-

dent for a job as an engineer or a machinist).

Yo u th apprenticeship programs use the workplace as a learning environment and

link students to a mentor in the workplace. Classroom instruction emphasizes the

integration of academic and vocational learning, and the product is a certificate

or diploma demonstrating that the student has the knowledge and skills required

by a specific workplace. This arrangement requires that employers make signifi-

cant changes in the workplace, as mentoring and collaboration with the school are

essential.

In a school-based enterprise, students essentially operate a business and are in

charge of producing goods or services for sale to customers. This provides the ap-

plication of academic knowledge to work and helps students gain an understand-

ing of business. Generally, instructors maintain control of instructional activity,

but the tasks of the business are largely completed by the students.

Work-based learning is the key component of cooperative education, which in-

volves a written training agreement among the student, school, and employer. The

work experience is typically paid, supervised, and worth academic credit. Often,

this model is used by employers as a screening device to select new em

ployees, an

c24.qxd 8/5/04 9:30 AM Page 580

Broadening Our Understanding of Work-Bound Youth: A Challenge 581

issue that can be viewed as a boon for the students’ job search but a problem if the

employer is putting workplace needs ahead of the students’ training. This model

typically follows a less formal or structured cooperation between academic and

work-based learning.

As the name implies, integrated vocational and academic education balances the-

ory with application and blends work-based and academic learning. This model

requires increased communication and coordination among academic teachers,

vocational teachers, and counselors. The key issue in this approach is for in-

volved school professionals and community members to adapt school organiza-

tion and philosophy to make the integrated education program appropriate for

all students.

VALUATING

CHOOL

-W

ORK

ROGRAMS

Research on the effectiveness of school-to-work transition programs remains in

the early stages, in part because of the wide variety of STW models. As was noted

by Blustein et al. (2000), there remains a considerable need for more comprehen-

sive program review and more specific research questions. Future research

should particularly attend to the differential effectiveness of STW interventions

across gender, cultural, socioeconomic, and age groups. However, a growing body

of work is considering adolescent work experience, career education, and the

school-to-work transition, and these efforts can inform school-to-work imple-

mentation. Selections from each of these areas are presented next.

Adolescent Employment Because youth who work are less likely to be unemployed

during early adulthood (Carr, Wright, & Brody, 1996), early employment may be

particularly important for work-bound youth (Schoenhals, Tienda, & Schneider,

1998). However, there is some debate about whether work has a positive or nega-

tive effect on long-term outcomes, including education (Barling & Kelloway, 1999;

Carr et al., 1996; Schoenhals et al., 1998). For example, Carr et al. analyzed data

from a subset (including 2,716 youth) of the National Longitudinal Survey of

Youth (NLSY) to address the long-term effects of youth employment. They found

that working during high school was positively and significantly related to labor

force participation, employment, and income, but negatively related to educa-

tional attainment, particularly for males. The authors concluded that the positive

effect of work on earnings and employment outweighed the possible negative ef-

fect of less education, but also acknowledged that the latter could have a greater

impact as time out of high school increased.

One factor that has been addressed in the debate about the value of adolescent

work is the number of hours a student works each week. Some research has sug-

gested that working a few hours a week can provide benefits in terms of academic

achievement, improved work-related skills, and self-confidence (Mortimer, 2003;

Quirk, Keith, & Quirk, 2001). These authors caution that employment is helpful

when limited to fewer than 12 hours per week and that more hours in employ-

ment can contribute to academic problems (Quirk et al., 2001).

However, Schoenhals et al. (1998) analyzed the impact of employment on more

than 15,000 10th-grade students and concluded that the consequences of adoles-

cent employment were generally positive, even for students who worked substan-

tially more hours each week. The employed students did demonstrate increased

c24.qxd 8/5/04 9:30 AM Page 581

582 S

PECIAL

EEDS AND

PPLICATIONS

absenteeism from school, missing up to 1.3 days more each semester than stu-

dents who were not working. However, students demonstrated no decrease in

grades, time spent on homework, or time spent in leisure reading when they

worked up to 20 hours per week. Those who worked more than 31 hours per week

did reduce the time spent in leisure reading but not the other categories. The

biggest change was noted in television viewing; all employed students spent less

time watching television than nonemployed students. The authors stated “confi-

dently that no serious adverse consequences of youth employment are operating

through the outcomes” (p. 750) that they observed, at least through 10th grade.

Career Education Plank (2001) determined that students at risk for noncomple-

tion were less likely to drop out of high school when the ratio of career and tech-

nical education credits to academic credits was 3 to 4. Ratios either higher or

lower than that were associated with increased likelihood of dropping out. Fur-

ther, the author suggested that a balance of academic and CTE experiences might

result in increased options after high school. However, the CTE-academic balance

was also correlated with a slight reduction in standardized test scores in the core

academic areas. Plank argued that the increased graduation rates for at-risk

youth are worth this slight decrease. However, presently, the emphasis on stan-

dardized testing through the “No Child Left Behind” model of educational re-

form might dissuade some school administrators from embracing that idea. In

fact, for one school included in another study (Castellano et al., 2002), the very ex-

istence of the school depended on the ability of students to pass a test. For such a

school, the tradeoff of emphasizing increased graduation rates but with possibly

lower test scores might be too high.

In a review of at-risk youth enrolled in career academies, Kemple and Snipes

(2000) reported a decrease in dropout rates and increased attendance and gradu-

ation achievement among academy students, compared to nonacademy students.

They attribute this, at least in part, to the interpersonal and academic support

that career academies can provide. Interpersonal support, which is typified by

the cohort model of career academies wherein students and a team of teachers

work together over several years, requires a substantial investment by the school

and may be beyond the resources of many institutions. These authors also sug-

gested that the students should be drawn from a heterogeneous population of

students, arguing that at-risk students are more likely to benefit if they work

alongside more engaged students. Thus, interpersonal support might be provided

by peers, making this emphasis more feasible for some schools.

School-to-Work Activities Several studies have considered the effect of specific

STW models. Because of space constraints, a comprehensive review of these

models cannot be presented here, but several reviews can be easily accessed on-

line. Examples of successful programs have been collected by the Manpower

Demonstration Research Corporation (www.mdrc.org/sps/swish.cgi), the

National Center for Research in Vocational Education, and the National Re-

search and Dissemina

tion Centers for Career and Technical Education (both

archived at www.nccte.com). Far fewer examples of specific STW interventions

are available in the counseling literature, although Blustein et al. (2000) identified

several successful program components. In one example, Solberg et al. (2002) re-

ported positive outcomes for a school-to-work-to-life (STWL) intervention imple-

mented in the Milwaukee school system. The STWL curriculum was based on

c24.qxd 8/5/04 9:30 AM Page 582

Broadening Our Understanding of Work-Bound Youth: A Challenge 583

developmental-contextualism theory and included four linked components that

empower youth to make their own decisions and shape their own career develop-

ment. In a sample of 131 ninth-grade students involved in this program, students

demonstrated improved grades, increased credits earned, improved passing rates,

and greater attendance.

Due to the variety of STW models and the various ways in which they are im-

plemented across communities and school districts, caution must be applied in

the interpretation of individual evaluation findings. This is exemplified in one

evaluation of Tech Prep programs (Hershey, Silverberg, Owens, & Hulsey, 1998),

in which very few of the included Tech Prep programs included all of the pre-

scribed Tech Prep components at the same time. Hershey et al. found that both

students and parents resisted the lock-step sequence of courses that Tech Prep

employs to prepare students to move into the local community or other two-year

college. In fact, because the sequence was viewed as making preparation for a

four-year college less likely, only 10% of the Tech Prep programs included in the

study followed such a rigid structure. In another study (Bragg, 2001), the signif-

icant differences in execution across eight programs resulted in the conclusion

that anywhere from 17% to 75% of students went to two-year colleges after grad-

uation, and anywhere from 5% to 53% went to four-year colleges. These two

studies illustrate a conundrum in the evaluation of STW programs: The very

flexibility that is necessary to ensure that programs can deliver needed services

to students in a given community creates significant challenges for comprehen-

sive, rigorous evaluation.

A three-part evaluation study series, the National Evaluation of School-to-

Work Implementation, reported on the impact of the School-to-Work Opportuni-

ties Act (STWOA; 1994). All three reports (Haimson & Bellotti, 2001; Hershey,

Hudis, Silverberg, & Haimson, 1997; Hershey, Silverberg, Haimson, Hudis, &

Jackson, 1999) concluded that only a limited number of students had participated

in multiple career development activities that were meaningfully linked to one

another. The most common activities were those that focused on increasing ca-

reer awareness, such as interest inventories, presentations by various employers,

and job shadowing opportunities, rather than the more intensive, paid intern-

ships or apprenticeships envisioned by the STWOA.

The work-based learning aspect of the STW effort presented several chal-

lenges. Although local partnerships were very enthusiastic about work-based

learning, it was difficult to identify or develop employment activities that pro-

vided paid work experiences for more than a small percentage of students. How-

ever, on a more positive note, 16% of students did report having some kind of

activity that linked work-based and school-based learning. In addition, by the

time of the second report (Hershey et al., 1999), participation in career-related ac-

tivities had doubled among work-bound students, helping to narrow the training

gap with college-bound students.

The final report (Haimson & Bellotti, 2001) highlighted the challenges of es-

tablishing intensive work-based experiences, noting three contributing factors:

1. Workplace learning requires significant support (and expense) from school

staff.

2. Employers can incur substantial costs and may not benefit directly because

many students leave the employer upon graduation.

3. Tension exists between workplace activities and academic success.

c24.qxd 8/5/04 9:30 AM Page 583

584 S

PECIAL

EEDS AND

PPLICATIONS

Implications of the Evaluation Findings Individual adolescents and young adults

respond differently to the challenge of integrating school- and work-based learn-

ing activities, and gender, age, and cultural differences must be considered in

both the development and effectiveness of such learning activities. However, the

preceding research does demonstrate that, as a group, youth can receive benefits

from working while in school, and these benefits may be particularly important

for work-bound youth. Further, school-arranged work experiences, which are

linked to academic activities, are more likely to help youth clarify their own work

expectations, provide more valuable work-based learning, and increase school at-

tendance and graduation rates among youth at risk for dropping out. However,

implementing STW activities presents several challenges. Creating partnerships

with local constituents (including schools, employers, parents, and students) is

essential to meet local employment and labor force needs. Yet establishing and

maintaining these partnerships is difficult. Counteracting stereotypes about

cational education and STW activities continues to be difficult, and convincing

employers to participate is also challenging. Finally, the inconsistency in pro-

gram funding and the absence of high-level support for STW initiatives leave

local initiatives with limited support.

HAT

OUNSELORS

The turbulent history of STW initiatives suggests that many counselors will be

unlikely to work directly within formal STW programs. However, most coun-

selors and career development professionals will work with clients, either indi-

vidually or in groups, who are experiencing the transition from school to work.

Therefore, it is critical that career professionals develop the tools necessary to fa-

cilitate that transition or simply recognize the applicability of commonly used in-

terventions to issues encountered by work-bound youth. These interventions can

be organized into three broad categories: student-centered career exploration in-

terventions, work-based interventions, and curriculum-based interventions.

Student-Centered Career Exploration Interventions Student-based interventions

focus on both identifying and developing the attributes of the individual, with the

intention of fostering a successful match to the expectations of a workplace or mul-

tiple workplaces. As such, many interventions within this category are consistent

with person-environment fit career theories. The value of person-environment

strategies in the school-to-work transition has been highlighted by Swanson and

Fouad (1999), who suggested several strategies for the school-to-work transition:

1. Provide sufficient opportunities and time for students to engage in explo-

ration leading to self-knowledge.

2. Teach the basic components of self-knowledge, occupational knowledge,

and the steps in decision making.

3. Focus adequate attention on the decision-making process and the implica-

tions of those decisions.

4. Evaluate the interventions and students’ decisions periodically throughout

the school-to-work transition.

5. Recognize that work-bound youth need particular knowledge of self and

work and how to fit the two together, because they have fewer opportuni-

ties for trial and error than do college-attending youth.

c24.qxd 8/5/04 9:30 AM Page 584

Broadening Our Understanding of Work-Bound Youth: A Challenge 585

Dykeman et al. (2001) have identified two large categories of interventions used

by career counselors and other school professionals to foster individual ca

reer

exploration: introductory interventions and advisory interventions. Intro

ductory

interventions are brief interventions designed to “awaken a student’s

interest in

their own personal and professional growth” (p. 18). Interventions include

reer fairs and field trips, culturally sensitive aptitude assessments, bringing

community members into the classroom, and providing guidance lessons on

personal/social development, career development, and academic planning. Activ-

ities of this nature are designed to increase student awareness of opportunities

and the diverse array of career options. Krumboltz and Worthing

ton (1999) have

suggested that counselors need to help students expand their interests and abil-

ities, rather than focus on work that matches already existing interests. Intro-

duc

tory interventions support that goal, with the objective of increasing the

individual student’s field of perceived options.

Advising interventions can be defined as “the class of interventions designed

to provide direction, resolve impediments, or sustain planfulness in students

about their goals for the future” (Dykeman et al., 2001, p. 18). When working

with work-bound students, the most relevant activities include career counseling

and assessments, assistance with recruiting and interview skills, maintenance of

a career library or resource center, and job-hunting preparation. Culturally ap-

propriate assessments can be used to further student learning about both the self

and the world of work, rather than simply providing information about possible

matches between work and personal characteristics (Krumboltz & Worthington,

1999; Swanson & Fouad, 1999). In addition, both assessment information and de-

veloping plans to meet future goals can help students prepare for a world of work

in which they are likely to change their jobs and occupations numerous times

(Krumboltz & Worthington, 1999; Lent, Hackett, & Brown, 1999; Savickas, 1999,

2003). Encouraging youth to commit to a given occupation may be both “unrealis-

tic and self-defeating” (Krumboltz & Worthington, 1999, p. 317) given current so-

cial trends. Instead, counselors can better assist youth by preparing them to see

occupational change as normative, rather than problematic (Lent et al., 1999), and

by fostering their problem-solving and adaptation skills.

Work-Based Interventions Work-based interventions have been defined as a “class

of interventions designed to promote both career and academic self-efficacy and

motivation through sustained and meaningful interactions with work sites in the

community” (Dykeman et al., 2001, p. 18). Many of the interventions in this cate-

gory were included in the STW models previously described, as they include

work placements such as cooperative education, internship, service learning,

work-study, and youth apprenticeships.

Numerous activities that can occur outside formal STW programs are also in-

cluded here. Counselors can assist students in gaining experience through nu-

merous work preparation activities that require less structure than those

previously listed, for example, job shadowing, mentorship programs, and work-

based learning projects. Students who have the opportunity to visit a workplace

for a short time period might be assigned to one worker to shadow that worker

and better understand the actual responsibilities of a given job. An information

interview can also be integrated into job shadowing or another learning project.

In this activity, students interview one or more persons in one or more occupa-

tions to better understand their experience of the work and their strategies for

c24.qxd 8/5/04 9:30 AM Page 585