Bringing Parents Back In

Bringing Parents Back In

Luther B. Otto

For more than a decade youth studies have reported that young peoplehave unmet needs in the area of career planning and guidance. The themewas sounded early in the 1970s in the American College Testing (ACT) na-tionwide study of student career development (Prediger, Roth, and Noeth,1973) in which eighty-four percent of the eleventh-graders said they couldalmost always see a counselor when they wanted to, yet 78 percent said theywanted more help making career plans. One-half to two-thirds reportedthat school career planning services were of little or no help to them.

The ACT study is dated, but the same themes continue as expressed inHigh school and Beyond (Peng, Fetters, and Kolstad, 1980), the career de^velopment study (Otto, 1983a), Monitoring the Future (Johnston, Bachman,and O'Malley, 1981), and the recent Educational Testing Service (ETS)study (Chapman and Katz, 1983). For example, the ETS study reported thatmost students feel that high school career planning resources are insuffi-cient, and two-thirds of the seniors in Monitoring the Future wanted morecounseling to discuss education or training plans and career plans or jobchoice. The American College Testing researchers were prophetic in con-cluding that there was--and continues to be--a sharp contrast between theamount of help high school students say they would like to have comparedwith the help they get.

The findings are consistent: young people say they need more helpchoosing careers. That is not to say that young people are insensitiveor unresponsive to guidance services. In Monitoring the Future, for ex-ample one in four seniors reported that sessions with a counselor were"quite helpful," and another one in nine said "extremely helpful." Thefact that they consistently express their needs, yet acknowledge help

Luther B. Otto is Director of the Youth Studies Division and Directorof the Career Development Program at the Boys Town Center, Boys Totm, NE.

Journal of Career Education 255

from school guidance services, suggests that perhaps a new set of issuesshould be posed. Might the continuing criticisms suggest, first, that thecontent of counseling should be expanded; and second, that the strategycounselors employ to deliver career guidance services be reconsidered?In this article I suggest that effective career counseling requires expan-sion of the traditional content it offers, I offer a rationale for direct-ly involving parents in the career advisory role, and I describe a pro-gram that has effectively worked through parents in providing career plan-ning services.

EFFECTIVE CAREER COUNSELING

Young people want more help choosing careers, and schools and coun-selors have responded. A recent National Center for Education Statist icsStudy (1982) reported that from spring 1970 to f a l l 1979, the ratio ofcounselors to pupils in public schools increased by 45 percent. Therewere 1.1 counselors for each 1,000 students in 1970. By 1979 the numberincreased to 1.6. At the secondary level the counselor-to-pupil ratio iseven more favorable: 3.68 counselors for every 1,000 high school students,an average of one counselor for every 272 students. On the perhaps tenu-ous assumption that counselors are direct ly involved with counselingstudents eight hours a day, 180 days per year, that means today's highschool students have available an average of f ive hours and eighteen min-utes of counseling per student per year.

That would be encouraging to career guidance i f the increased coun-selor-to-pupil ratio translated direct ly into some f ive hours of careerguidance per student. But such is not the case. The 1983 ETS study ofcareer information systems in secondary schools (Chapman and Katz, 1983)reported that in 82 percent of the cases the purpose for students' v is i tswith counselors is to talk about courses. That means that only 18 percentof the visits57 minutes per student per year--are primarily for purposesother than course counseling--including career counseling.

The average amount of time available for career guidance is not l ike lyto exceed one hour per year per student--even under optimal conditions.This raises a question of whether young people's career guidance needs canever be met by pouring more counselors into the trenches. Suppose, forpurpose of i l l us t ra t i on , that schools were to continue to build the rat ioof counselors to students over the next decade at the same hefty rate theyhave since 1970. By the early 1990s the rat io of counselors to pupils atthe secondary level might then be 5.34 counselors for every 1,000 stu-dents--one counselor for every 187 students. Under the same generous as-sumptions that governed my earl ier calculations, students could then ant ic i -pate an average of one hour and twenty-three minutes of career guidancecounseling per student per year--twenty-five more minutes per year thanis now available. Would that be "enough"?

These extrapolations are more than idle exercises in number crunching.The numbers even under optimal assumptions--suggest that students' report-ed needs may not be met by sustained improvements in pupil-counselor ratiosover the next ten years. "More of the same" might help, but i t would seem

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to fall short of being an adequate response to reoccurring expressions ofstudent career guidance needs. Perhaps we should consider ways of adjust-ing our game plan.

The Trait-Factor Model

Herr and Cramer (1979) observed that the development of vocationalguidance followed a conceptualization proposed by Frank Parsons seventy-five years ago. In Choosing a Vocation, Parsons reasoned that vocationalguidance consisted in a three-step process (1909).

1. A person must develop a clear understanding of his or her apti-tudes, abilities, interests, resources, limitations, and otherqualities.

2. A person must develop a knowledge of different lines of work, therequirements and conditions of success, advantages and disadvan-tages, compensation, opportunities, and prospects.

3. Following "true reasoning," a person must match individual traitswith occupational requirements.

Parsons's trait-factor approach set the developmental agenda for vocationalguidance. The first step, clarifying individual differences, issued in anindustry dedicated to the development of measurement instruments--e.g.,the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory. The second step, acquiring infor-mation about occupations, invited an industry dedicated to producing thatinformation--e.g., the Occupational Outlook Handbook. And the third step,that people match their individual traits with occupational characteristics,ushered in career counseling, a human services profession that assistspeople in developing information about themselves, gathering informationabout occupations, and making decisions about an appropriate match.

An Extended Paradigm

The trait-factor approach continues as the dominant paradigm in careercounseling. That, I suggest, is itself a curious development because dur-ing the Great Depression and more recent recessions, people's interestschanged from "How can I work out my self-concept in the work place?" to"What do I have to do to get a job?" To extrapolate on Maslow: Nutritionand sustenance--not developing a healthy self-concept--that's what it'sall about when the body is starving. The trait-factor paradigm has weath-ered social and economic upheaval for three-quarters of a century withnary a blink--but that is not^ necessarily a complimentl A major limitationof the trait-factor approach is that it is narrowly discipline-based. Itdoes not take into account the development of complimentary disdplines--sociology, economics, demography, and social psychology--and the under-standing these can contribute to the career decision-making process andto strategies for more effectively delivering career guidance services.


I suggest two logical extensions to the trait-factor conceptualiza-tion. The first incorporates information beyond knowledge of occupations(Parsons's step 2) and includes understanding social structural considera-tions that affect employment opportunities. The second is more expansiveregarding Parsons's step 3, which focuses on matching and making decisionsabout the fit between individual traits and occupational characteristics.The dominant paradigm can and must be extended to incorporate understand-ing significant-other influences that extend beyond the role of the coun-selor. The disciplines of sociology, demography, and economics informsocial structural considerations. The social psychological literatureprovides a fuller understanding of the interpersonal influence processesthat affect career decision-making.

SOCIAL STRUCTURAL CONSIDERATIONS

It is almost trite to observe that ours is a fast-paced society withrevolutionary changes in the labor market. Yet the trait-factor paradigmgives, at best, only passive attention to structural change by perpetuat-ing a molecular focus on occupational characteristics and giving littlemore than a passing nod to molar changes in population characteristics,labor force trends, and career preparation options. Matching personalitytraits with occupational characteristics may be a solution to resolvingthe identity crisis during days of wine and roses, but nobody ever arguedthat it was a way to keep body and soul together during hard times. Ca-reer guidance--if it is to be credible, relevant, and "alive"--must pro-vide guidance in both good times and bad. That, it seems to me, is theultimate test of theory.

Population Change

An intelligent and responsible career choice in the mid-1980s dependsas much on demographic factors as it does on matching individual traitswith occupational characteristics. Career counseling that focuses on thetrait-factor match to the exclusion of population changes perpetuates twomyths. The first is that "you can be anything." That myth pretends thatwe still live in the frontier era and that there is always elbow-room forone more gold digger or sheep rancher. The frontier era mentality con-tinues to define the counselor's job primarily as that of figuring outwhether a particular individual likes the glitter of gold or can live withthe smell of sheep. The goal is to accomplish a "good fit." But littleattention is given to the "fit" between individual needs and employmentpossibilities, and between worker supply and demand features fueled bypopulation and labor force change rather than personal preference.

There are examples of what short-sighted counseling practice leads to.For example, during the 1960s the demand for teachers outstripped the sup-ply, which triggered increased enrollments in colleges of education. Bythe end of the decade colleges of education mass-produced a teacher glutthat continued into the early 1980s. Enrollments have now fallen off.But by the end of the current decade, the demand will again exceed supply

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because enrollments are not yet responding to anticipate the demand. Ca-reer guidance needs to develop and use better information on social struc-tural changes.

Labor Force Change

Labor force changes are a second example of social structural consid-erations that the trait-factor paradigm ignores. Labor force changes in-clude a substantial decline in labor force growth, the graying of Americaor maturing of the work force, high-tech innovations and robotics, and thedecline of smoke-stack industries accompanied by the rise of a service-oriented economy. Our society has been slow getting into the business ofmanpower administration, and career counselors will feed the myth that"anybody who really wants to work can find a job" if we fail to developand provide the kind of labor force information that informs responsiblecareer decision-making.

In the absence of accurate social structural information, people relyon the media. But "news" can be misleading. For example, the new notionis that newly developing fields in computer and laser technology provideexceptional employment opportunities. The media focus on rate of growthbut ignore the most important considerations. The first is that the sizeof an industry or occupational group has more to do with employment oppor-tunities than does growth rate. A two percent growth rate in a huge indus-try offers more opportunities than a 50 percent growth rate in a small,new industry. The second is that the news approach to career counseling1s oblivious to the fact that most employment opportunities are createdby replacement needs, not the development of new industries or the growthrate of high flyers.

Career Preparation Options

The trait-factor paradigm ignores systematic attention to matchingcareer choice with career preparation options. In contemporary society,it is not enough for a young person to know what he or she wants to do.Access to an occupation also requires knowing what the appropriate creden-tials are and what the options are for acquiring them. A much overlookedreality is that credentials--whether degrees, certification, licensure,or exper1ence--are efficient screening mechanisms that employers use tohire workers. One of the most telling aggravations participants in thecareer development study (Otto, Call, and Spenner, 1981) voiced at agethirty as they looked back and reflected on their early careers was thatnobody ever explained their career preparation options. Typical of theircomplaints is this comment from a registered nurse:

I chose a three-year nursing program instead of a four-yearbachelor's degree program, not knowing until after I gotinto nursing school that the three-year programs were soonto be phased out. I wasn't made to realize that four-yearnurses were the only ones who could do public health, super-vise, etc.


Today's career preparation options are as diverse as the f ie lds of employ-ment they serve. Cer t i f i ca t ion programs, for example, have become increas-ingly popular--even in i ns t i t u t i ons of higher learn ing; and the d is t inc -t ions between degrees and cer t i f i ca tes ar.e blurred. An important compo-nent in the career decision-making process is deciding on the best careerpreparation that f i t s the decision-maker's interests and needs.

Young people want more help choosing careers. Yet, according to the1981 Monitoring the Future study and the recent ETS. study (1983), only at h i r d want to see a counselor more of ten. That suggests that wanting morehelp does not necessarily mean wanting more o f the counselor's t ime.Question: Instead of more t ime, might students need "other information"on how population changes, labor force trends, and developments in careerpreparation options have a d i rect bearing on the i r career decisions?

INTERPERSONAL INFLUENCE PROCESSES

Research on the occupational achievement process is probably the mostsustained and cumulative development of theory and empirical inquiry inthe social sciences. That t r ad i t i on has been intent on explaining why i tis that fathers ' levels of soeioeconomic achievement so strongly predictsons' eventual occupational achievements. The consensus theory (Otto andHal ler , 1979) for explaining the occupational achievement process is asocial psychological in terpreta t ion that focuses on the interpersonal re-lat ionships young people have with the i r s ign i f i can t others.

Theory and research indicate that there are three social psychologicalmechanisms that sequential ly l i nk family soeioeconomic status with youngpeople's eventual occupational s tatus. The mechanisms involve, f i r s t , theyoung people's mental a b i l i t y and academic performance; second, the i r s ig -n i f i can t others--whether parents, peers, or teachers and counselors; andt h i r d , young people's occupational aspirat ions.

Aspirations

Young people's aspirations are the central mechanism in the occupa-t ional achievement process. Aspirations refer to what a person wants.Aspirations may be d i f fe rent ia ted from expectations, which are the levelsof educational and occupational achievement that other people expect ofthe person. Both aspirationswhat a person wants--and expectations--what others expect--have an important influence on young people's even-tual achievements.

Some young people aspire to high educational levels--perhaps a te r -minal degreeand high levels of occupational status--perhaps becoming adent ist or attorney. Others have more modest aspi ra t ions, say, to attend-ing a technical school. S t i l l others drop out of high school and say theyw i l l be sa t i s f ied with menial jobs. Whatever the level of educational andoccupational aspirations young people have, what they aspire to is thestrongest single predictor of what they w i l l achieve.

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The question, then, is why young people differ in their levels of as-piration. Where do the differences come from? Who influences them?

Personal and Interpersonal Influences

Young people's aspirations are formed and modified in two basic ways.First, they themselves take stock of their educational and occupationalpotential. They think about themselves, their likes and dislikes, theirstrengths and their weaknesses. In particular, young people take intoaccount their mental ability and academic performance in setting theiraspirations.

Second, other people, significant others, influence them, too. Sig-nificant others are people who are important to others in particular areasof life. Typically, a young person's significant others include parents,peers, teachers, and perhaps counselors. Significant others make assess-ments of the young person's mental ability and past performance. They"size up" the young person, think about his or her potential , hold edu-cational and occupational expectations, and encourage him or her alongthose lines. Significant others influence young people through the nor-mal socialization processes: rewards and punishments, teaching and rea-soning, and example.

Young people have only limited arenas within which to demonstratetheir ability and accomplishment. These are closely tied to schooling,the main activity that engages them over their developmental years. Par-ents, peers, teachers, possibly counselors, and the young people them-selves recognize high mental ability when they see it and define peoplewith high mental ability as good candidates for postsecondary education--the most important avenue to high status occupations. They also recog-nize and interpret academic performance as evidence for later educationaland occupational achievement. In the same way, both take into accountevidence of lower mental ability and performance and adjust their aspira-tions and expectations accordingly.

Mental Ability and Academic Performance

The final link in the chain of mechanisms connects families' socio-economic status with young people's mental ability and academic perfor-mance. Studies show that family socioeconomic status relates directly tochildren's mental ability and academic performance scores. Higher socio-economic families encourage beliefs, values, and attitudes that supporttheir children's educational achievements. They have the family resourcesthat provide opportunities--whether these take the form of matriculationfees for private schools, hiring tutors, or sustaining a secure home envi-ronment conducive to study. All of these encourage academic performance,and the demonstrations of ability, and competency that result are theninterpreted by significant others and young people as indications ofscholarly promise.


In summary, on the basis of self-assessments and encouragement fromsignificant others, young people set their educational aspirations, whichis an important determinant of the level of education they wi l l achieve;their level of education is the single most important determinant of theireventual occupational achievement.

Parents in the Achievement Process

Parents figure prominently in theory and research on the occupationalachievement process. They are the most influential significant others thatmold the career aspirations and eventual achievements of their young people.Parents--not peers, not teachers, and not counselors--have the biggest in-fluence on young people's career plans. I ask, "Why not put parental in-fluence to better use in advising young people's career decisions?"

The repeated research finding emphasizing the dominant influence par-ents have on young people's career aspirations and achievements f l ies inthe face of the generation gap mentality that governs much parental be-havior. The notion that "my kids don't l isten to me" is a myth when i tcomes to choosing careers. I t simply isn ' t so. When i t comes to hairstyle, fashion favorites, hanging-around-activity, and vocabulary, youngpeople wi l l do what is popular and accepted and rewarded in the high schoolhallways. But when i t comes to beliefs, values, and behaviors in morebasic areas of human development--incl uding rel igion, pol i t ical beliefs andcareer plans--research is unequivocal in demonstrating that parents havethe biggest influence in molding their young people.

I t is important that young people know their interests and ab i l i t ies .I t is important that they know occupational characteristics. I t is alsoimportant that they match the two. But the trai t- factor paradigm is lim-ited in that i t does not provide information on social structural consider-ations and use what is known about interpersonal influence processes toassist young people making career choices.

"Doing the same, only more of i t " is no longer an adequate responseto young people's continuing cry for career guidance services. I t 1s nolonger sufficient to respond by upping the cou^nselor-to-student ra t io ,however helpful that may be. Other information is available--about popu-lation changes, labor force trends, and career preparation options--thatmust be developed more systematically and applied more effectively incareer counseling. Moreover, there are other peopleparents, in partic-ular--whose Influence is most important to the career decision-makingprocess. I propose a career counseling strategy that takes social struc-tural considerations and knowledge of interpersonal influence processesmore fu l ly into account. The following is a description of such a program.I t ' s an efficient way for counselors to multiply their effect on youngpeople making career plans.

TODAY'S YOUTH AND TOMORROW'S CAREERS

Today's Youth and Tomorrow's Careers is a seminar designed to helpparents help their sons and daughters choose careers. The rationale for

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the program is straightforward:

1. Young people want more help choosing careers. There is abun-dant evidence from youth studies to support this need.

2. Schools, teachers, and guidance counselors have tried to meetthe need; but the ratio of students to counselors precludesproviding the individualized career guidance services youngpeople need.

3. Parents have the biggest influence on their young people's ca-reer plans. Though this fact f l ies in the face of the "genera-tion gap" mentality that governs much parental behavior, i t hasbeen demonstrated consistently in fifteen years of research.

4. Parents, too, are very much concerned about 'the problem of ca-reer choice. A Gallup poll reports that "how to help my childchoose a career" is parents' second biggest parenting concern--second only to how to deal with problems of drug and substanceabuse.

5. I f parents are to be effective career advisers, they must pre-pare themselves. They must be disabused of the notion that"my kids don't l isten to me" when i t comes to planning careers,and they must use their constructive influence wisely.

6. I f parents are to be effective in helping their children choosecareers, they must have resources with which to work. The re-sources must go beyond matching young people's personalityt ra i ts with occupational characteristics to include informationabout population changes, labor force trends, and career prepara-tion options that bear on career decisions.

7. Today's Youth and Tomorrow's Careers is a seminar for parentsthat f i l l s these needs. The program works through counselorsto multiply their effectiveness by helping parents help theirchildren choose careers.

Today's Youth and Tomorrow's Careers provides seminars for parents ofhigh school-age students--the people who have the biggest influence ontheir children's career plans. The seminar is an eight-hour program,typically held over four weekly two-hour sessions, or an eight-hour week-end format. The seminar combines presentations by a trained leader withgroup discussion, a fu l ly i l lustrated f i lmstr ip, question-and-answer pe-riods, special handouts, and take-home activit ies for parents to use withtheir children.

The seminar content includes:

1. Tomorrow's employment opportunities--What are current trends inthe labor market? In what areas are the best employment oppor-tunities? What changes are occurring in the types of jobs andthe kinds of workers needed for those jobs?


2i Career preparation optionsWhat are the differences betweendegrees and certificates? What kinds of colleges are there?What should parents know about vocational preparation programs;apprenticeships; on-the-job training; and federal civil serviceor military training?

3. Career planning--Win a college degree be worth it in the 1980s?Will vocational preparation pay? What are the probable costsand payoffs in terms of options for an uncertain future?

4. Career exploration resources--What are the best materials? Thelatest information? Where can parents get it?

5. Financial aid--The picture is changing. What will career prepa-ration cost? How can parents afford it? What financial aidis available? How can parents find out?

6. Career planning resources--What information on occupations andcareer preparation options is available in the local careercenter? The seminar includes a walk-through or discussion ofthe guidance center to acquaint parents with counselors andthe basic resources.

Parents who attend the seminar receive a copy of Youth and Careers: AGuide for Parents (Otto, 1983a). They also receive Career Explorations(Otto, 1983b), a take-home workbook that helps parents work with theiryoung people to identify career interests, evaluate information aboutoccupations that interest them, and consider their career preparationoptions.

The career development program at Boys Town developed Today's Youthand Tomorrow's Careers under a three-year developmental grant from theW. K. Kellogg Foundation. The seminar format and materials underwentrigorous design, experimentation, and revision over a two-year periodbefore taking final form. The field testing included experimental pres-entations in a wide variety of settings. Informed by these experiencesand the written formative evaluations of more than one thousand parentsand nearly one hundred professional youth workers and counselors, we re-vised the materials and seminar model in anticipation of the extensivethird-year dissemination effort in which we are now engaged. By the endof the third year, the seminar will be presented in an estimated 200 lo-cations in 37 states, and about 165 professional and volunteer youthworkers will be trained to teach the materials in their local communities.

We disseminate the parents' seminars through arrangements with youthorganizations, churches, schools, and group homes. A number of demon-stration seminars have been presented with supplemental funding from theW. K. Kellogg Foundation. Others are sponsored on a cost-recovery basis.Parents from twenty-five to thirty families typically attend each seminar.

The project also schedules training workshops that prepare others--counselors, youth workers, teachers, and clergy--to present Today's Youthand Tomorrow's Careers in their communities. These are offered on acost-recovery basis.

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CONCLUDING COMMENT

Several months ago I gave an explicit assignment to my project staff.The assignment was inductive. The task was to carefully extract frommajor career guidance theories what problem the theory addressed. Theresults were disappointing. What seemed obvious was that the theorieswere deductive extensions of grand theories but not necessarily anchoredin present-tense human needs. I respectfully submit that career guidancewill most effectively serve today's youth by answering two questions.First, what additional information do young people need? Second, how canwe more effectively convey it? The future of career guidance depends onour answers.

REFERENCES

Chapman, W. & Katz, M. R. Career information systems in secondaryschools: A survey and assessment. Vocational Guidance Ouarterly,March 1983, 165-177.

Herr, E. L. & Cramer, S. H. Career guidance through the life span.Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1979.

Johnston, L. D., Bachman, G. G., & O'Malley, P. M. Monitoring the future.Ann Arbor: Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research,University of Michigan, 1981.

National Center for Education Statistics. Counselors in local educationagencies, fall 1979 and trends since 1970. Bulletin, U.S. Departmentof Education. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,December 1982.

Otto, L. B. Career explorations. Boys Town, NE: Career Development Pro-gram, 1983b.

Otto, L. B. Youth & careers: A guide for parents. Boys Town, NE: Ca-reer Development Program, 1983a.

Otto, L. B., Call, V. R., & Spenner, K. I. Design for a study of entryinto careers. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, D.C. Heath, 1981.

Otto, L. B. & Haller, A. 0. Evidence for a social psychological view ofthe status attainment process: Four studies compared. SocialForces. 1979, 57, 887-914.

Parsons, F. Choosing a vocation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909.

Peng, S. S., Fetters, W. B., & Kolstad, A. J. High school and beyond: Anational longitudinal study for the 1980s. Washington, D . C : Na-tional Center for Education Statistics, 1981.

Prediger, D., Roth, J., & Noeth, R. Nationwide study of student careerdevelopment: Summary of results" Iowa City, IA: American CollegeTesting Program, 1973.


Bringing Parents Back In

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