The Structure of Careers' Guidance in Secondary ...

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The structure of careers' guidance in secondary schools—A research note a

R.A. King & G. Easthope

a

a

University of Exeter Institute of Education Published online: 30 Jul 2007.

To cite this article: R.A. King & G. Easthope (1971) The structure of careers' guidance in secondary schools—A research note, The Vocational Aspect of Education, 23:55, 65-67, DOI: 10.1080/03057877180000091 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057877180000091

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The Vocational Aspect o f Education (Summer 1971) Volume X X I I I No. 55. pp. 65-67

The Structure of Careers' Guidance in Secondary Schools A Research Note By R. A. KING and G. EASTHOPE

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University of Exeter Institute of Education

can be seen in the fact that although all boys' schools had a careers' teacher, 29 per cent of girls' schools and 18 per cent of mixed schools did not have one. This lower provision of careers' teachers for girls is probably related to two factors: the expectation that girls will get married and stop working after a few years, and the narrower range of jobs open to women. Grammar schools tended to have most careers' teachers with an average of 2.1 per school,

The information presented here was obtained as part of a much wider investigation of the social organization of secondary schools. [1] The particular aspects of careers' guidance reported are those which are visible to the pupils, and therefore exclude relationships between the staff contributing to the service. A sample of 72 schools was investigated, drawn from seven local authority areas, and representative of the national distribution of schools in terms of their sex composition,

T A B L E 1. S t a f f con tribu ting to careers' guidance (percentage incidence) Type of School

Boys SM

Girls SM

Mixed SM

All SM

All CS*

Boys GS

Girls GS

Mixed GS

All GS

All School~

n Careers' teacher Head teacher Deputy head Other teachers

7 100 0 0 0

6 67 33 33 17

13 79 46 29 13

37 81 35 24 11

17 82 24 24 47

6 I00 33 17 33

6 83 50 17 67

6 83 17 50 33

18 89 33 28 44

72 83 32 25 28

Legend: SM Secondary modern; CS Comprehensive school; * 1 boys' school, 2 girls' and 14 mixed.

size and status. The methods used included questionnaires, non-participant observation, interviews and the content-analysis of documents.

GS

Grammar school.

compared with 1.2 and 1.4 for modern and comprehensive schools respectively. In many cases there was specialization among the grammar school careers' teachers, one dealing with direct entry into occupations, usually at the fifth-year level, and the other with higher education applications in the seventh year. About one-third of headteachers played some part in careers' guidance in their schools. This was most common where there was no careers' teacher;

Careers' staff Table 1 indicates the way the schools allocated the function of careers' guidance among their staff. Most schools (83 per cent) had at least one careers' teacher. The extent to which careers' guidance is seen to be more important for boys 65


66

Careers' Guidance in Secondary Schools

thus the incidence was highest in girls' schools, particularly girls' grammar schools where half the headmistresses advised compared with only 17 per cent of headmasters of boys' grammar schools. The involvement of senior staff, the deputy head, and in mixed schools, senior master or mistress, was not as high as that for headteachers, but, as with the heads, their involvement was highest where there was no careers' teacher, that is in girls and mixed schools. The use of other teachers as sources of careers' advice was most common in the grammar and comprehensive schools; a reflection of the extent to which school-leavers' careers are more directly related to school subjects, and the greater subject specialization in such schools.

invited to the meetings. This high frequency o f inviting parents was also found in the comprehensive schools. The decision to invite parents may be related, to the (presumed) level of parental interest. Over half the school gave individual interviews to all pupils, and about three-quarters had careers' literature on open display with free access for pupils. In general the comprehensives exposed their pupils to more careers' information than other schools. This may be related to the wide range of occupations taken up by pupils recruited over a wider ability range than either the modern or grammer schools. Other methods of transmitting careers' information included careers' conventions in 19 per cent of schools, at which representatives of industry,

TABLE 2. Methods of providing careers' advice and information (percentage incidence} Type of School

Boys SM

Girls SM

Mixed SM

All SM

All CS

Boys GS

Girls GS

Mixed GS

All GS

All Sch

Talks in school time Talks after school Talks timetabled Individual interviews Information displayed Parents invited to meetings Work experience in school time Work experience in holidays Visits to work places Visits to local tech. Visits to university Teaching practice

100 43 43 57 100

100 17 67 67 67

100 21 42 55 79

100 24 46 57

81

100 41 76 59 76

100 33 0 33 67

83 83 33 50 50

67 50 33 50 83

83 56 22 44 67

96 36 47 54 76

57

83

50

57

82

67

83

83

78

68

29

33

25

27

53

17

17

0

11

29

14 100 57 14 0

0 100 50 0 50

4 96 63 0 8

5 97 59 3 14

12 88 65 59 76

33 83 100 83 50

0 17 50 67 83

17 33 50 58 67

17 44 67 67 67

10 82 63 32 42

All schools made use of the Youth Employment Officer, but only six had counsellors, all with part-time teaching commitments. Methods o f providing information and advice Table 2 shows some of the methods used in Providing careers' information and advice All schools had careers' talks but varied in the way these were arranged. Talks in school time, by visiting speakers or a member of staff, occurred in most schools, but were least common in grammar schools. The grammar schools, however, arranged more evening meetings than other schools. This is probably related to two factors: the common anxiety in grammar schools about the shortage of time, especially in the fifth and seventh years, and the high frequency with which parents were

business and the armed forces were available for consultation. As well as inviting agents of the world of work into the schools, some schools were taking pupils out into the world of work. Twentynine per cent provided work experience schemes in school time, 10 per cent in the holidays, 82 per cent arranged visits to work places. This was more common in the non-selective schools, and probably relates to the lower proportion of grammarschool leavers making a direct entry into occupations.* Sixty-three per cent of schools arranged visits to the local technical college, 32 per cent to the * 50.4 per cent of the intake of the grammar schools entered occupations directly, 87.7 per cent in modern schools, 91.7 per cent in comprehensives.

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R. A. KING and G. EASTHOPE

nearest university. As may be e x p e c t e d , university visits from m o d e r n schools were rare (one case only), c o m p a r e d with 67 per cent f r o m grammar schools and 59 per cent f r o m comprehensives. This high incidence among comprehensives is not reflected in the actual rates at which pupils f r o m different kinds of school went to the universities, but was probably an a t t e m p t to raise the aspirations of the more able pupils (as in the grammar schools), and to establish legitimacy for the comprehensive school in relation to the university system.* At a more specific occupational level, 42 per cent o f schools arranged for pupils to do teaching practice in schools. This was rare in m o d e m schools but c o m m o n in b o t h comprehensives (76 per cent) and g r a m m a r schools (67 per cent), particularly girls' grammar schools. These proportions are partly reflected in the numbers of pupils entering colleges of education from the different kinds of school.t

The significance of the results The results o f the survey show that careers' guidance constitutes a significant part of the organization of secondary schools. The variations in the pattern o f organization a m o n g different * 18.3 per cent of the intake of the grammar schools entered universities, 2.4 per cent in comprehensives. t 11.4 per cent of the intake of grammar schools entered colleges of education, 2.8 per cent from comprehensives, 0.1 per cent from modern schools.

kinds of school are related to the characteristics o f their pupil intakes. Girls' schools are generally less concerned than boys' schools because of the lower evaluation placed on a career for girls c o m p a r e d with that for marriage. The o r i e n t a t i o n of the grammar schools is towards the careers available after post-school education. The extensive provision in the comprehensive schools may be related to the wide range of abilities a m o n g their pupils, in addition to their larger size and ideology which o f t e n put an emphasis on innovation and pupilcare. Many of the m o d e r n schools had well established links w i t h the local o c c u p a t i o n a l structure, and sent steady p r o p o r t i o n s of their leavers into a limited n u m b e r o f w o r k places, so that their allocative and advisory functions were not very i m p o r t a n t . In making provision for careers' advice for their pupils schools make p r e s u m p t i o n s a b o u t t h e educational and o c c u p a t i o n a l destinies of those pupils. It is s o m e t i m e s possible that these presumptions may have a self-fulfilling element. If pupils from a m o d e r n school are n o t made aware o f facilities at a technical college, h o w can they aspire to go there? This is a difficult p r o b l e m for schools who must be wary of setting unrealistically high a m b i t i o n s for their pupils so risking failure and disillusion. F o r the individual teacher the problem may be alleviated by the eventual emergence of a s e m i - a u t o n o m o u s guidance sub-system within the school with specialized non-teaching staff. But most schools, as this survey shows, are a long way f r o m this eventuality.

References 1. An early, brief account of the project, which is sponsored by the Schools Council, is found in

King, R. A. (1968) ' T h e Social Organisation of the School,' Higher Education Journal, 6, No. 5.

(Script received: October, 1970)