An Introduction to the History of Career or Vocational Guidance

1
An Introduction to the History of Career or
Vocational Guidance
By David Agnew Arkansas State University
2
Which is Correct?
Career Guidance or Vocational Guidance
Either, But it depends on who you are talking to
and when (Vocational is used less today)
3
Career Guidance

• Career Guidance Developed in parallel to
  Counseling.
• Vocational Guidance came first
• Counseling grew out of Vocational Guidance
• Counseling is more than or career vocational
  guidance.
• People in Counseling tend to like the term
  Career Guidance more than Vocational
  Guidance.
• The word vocational has even lost favor with the
  professionals in Vo Ed.
• One of the divisions of ACTE is Guidance

4
Objectives

• Describe the historical development of career
  education.
• Identify the key people associated with career
  education.
• Identify the guiding principles of career
  selection or guidance and how they have evolved.
• State the purposes or goals of career education
  in Arkansas.

5
Thinking about Historical Events from the
Standpoint of

• Their impact on labor demands and trends
• Societys need for more and different workers
• Development of new Technology
• The Values of the society
• Mobility
• Education and the need to systematically approach
  career education

6
Career Education Before 1900s

• Not much help was available for someone wanting
  to look at various careers.
• Knowledge of what opportunities existed resulted
  from contact with family, friends, church,
  community, and school.
• Very little literature on the subject.
• No organized effort to help people except thru
  some schools after education was completed.
• Our history was really more like of a cast
  society in 1800s. Ex. Slaves, the wealthy could
  afford school for their children to enter the
  professions.
• Education was seen by Horace Mann as the great
  equalizer to mankind. It broke the old cycle.

7
Related and Significant Historical Events

• Sabbath Schools for children to learn to read in
  the early 1800s who were being over worked by
  factories. Held on Sunday, sponsored by y
  churches, wealthy people, in some cases taxes,
  but mostly in larger cities Taught mostly 3 Rs
• Population moving from rural to urban (agrarian
  to industrial society), resulting in more diverse
  work opportunities.
• Worker unions became fairly common in the second
  half of 1800s
• Electricity of the 1880s led to lighted factories
  and night schools.
• 1872 National Labor Reform Party formed
• 1878 Socialist Labor Party founded
• Child labor laws begin to emerge mid to late 1800s

8
Labor day becomes a HolidayFirst Monday of
September

• Research seems to support the contention that
  Matthew Maguire, later the secretary of Local 344
  of the International Association of Machinists in
  Paterson, N.J., proposed the holiday in 1882
  while serving as secretary of the Central Labor
  Union in New York
• Samuel Gompers, -- founder and longtime president
  of the American Federation of Labor said. "All
  other holidays are in a more or less degree
  connected with conflicts and battles of man's
  prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed
  and power, of glories achieved by one nation over
  another. Labor Day...is devoted to no man, living
  or dead, to no sect, race, or nation."

9
More on Labor Day

• The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on
  Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City.
• In l884 the first Monday in September was
  selected as the holiday, as originally proposed,
  and the Central Labor Union urged similar
  organizations in other cities to follow the
  example of New York and celebrate a "workingmen's
  holiday" on that date.
• In 1894, the federal government made Labor Day
  (the first Monday in September) a federal public
  holiday.
• http//www.infinet.com/dzimmerm/Ld/links.html
• http//sea-man.com/laborday.html
• http//www.ptialaska.net/nstanley/LaborDay.htm

10
MORE Significant Historical Events

• Immigration from Europe and other Countries
• Elimination of poverty
• Improving living conditions
• Living conditions and depersonalization during
  industrial revolution
• Concentration on children

11
Movement toward education for purpose and
assessment

• 1890 James Cattell publishes article in which he
  referred to mental tests as measures of
  individual differences
• John Dewey calls for social reform in education -
  lead to more focus on individual motivations,
  interests, and development

12
VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE MOVEMENT

• 1907 Jesse Davis -- Started first Voc. Guid.
  Program in schools (Grand Rapids Michigan) - not
  very systematic.
• 1907 Frank Parsons -- Credited with first system
  or theory of career guidance, consistent with
  social reform at time. Known as the founding
  father to Vocational Guidance.

13
Parsons Background

• Born in 1854, died in 1908.
• Trained in Civil Engineering at Cornell.
• Later taught Mathmatics, history, and French in
  public schools.
• Was on Faculty at Kansas State University in
  1897-1899.
• Later on faculty at Boston University.

14
Frank Parsons-- founding fatherof Vocational
Guidance

• In 1908 Parsons opened the Vocational Bureau of
  Boston with the purpose of helping people learn
  of careers.
• Wrote book called Choosing a Vocation. First
  published in 1909. New York Agatha Press
  (reprinted 1967).

15
Parsons Motivation

• Parsons believed that immigration constituted a
  drag on the advancement of society industrially.
  Parsons and others observed that too many
  individuals, especially European immigrants, were
  being economically and socially wasted due to
  the failure of the overly academic school system
  to come to terms with the new industrial society,
  which caused students to drop out into the world
  of work. This not only hurt the individual, but
  also made the factory inefficient.
• From 1894 to 1904 parsons devoted much of his
  effort to reforming industries, in terms of
  occupational conditions. During this time period
  he did not focus on the individuals vocational
  needs.
• He gained a positive view of vocational education
  when he was professor at Kansas State University
  (1897 and 99).
• In 1905 Parsons turned from the reform of the
  industry to the reform of the individuals who
  worked within industry.

16
Parsons Motivation continued.

• Parsons developed a scientific procedure for
  helping people choose a vocation by helping them
  become more aware of their needs, aptitudes, and
  the demands of certain occupations.
• Following self study, with the help of a
  vocational counselor, people could make rational
  and free decisions about the work for which they
  were best suited and the education then needed.
• Parsons argued that this approach would ensure
  efficiency for both factory and the individual
  and thus improve society.

17
Vocational Bureau of Boston

• Formed in 1908, the Bureau was organized to deal
  with occupational adjustment problems of youth
  and adults.
• Parsons found that people were greatly interested
  in seeking advice on occupations. In time
  individual counseling gave way to group
  instruction about career options.
• Parsons was the first to use the term "Vocational
  Guidance" in his first report on the work of the
  Bureau.

18
National Conference on Guidance

• 1910 first National Conference on Guidance
  sponsored by the Vocational Bureau of Boston, an
  outgrowth of Parsons work.
• At the 3rd National Conference (1913) the
  National Association of Guidance was formed.

19
PARSONS Book

• 1909 Frank Parsons publishes "Choosing a
  Vocation
• Printed after he died in 1908
• Reprinted in 1967 by Agatha Press
• Still in use today
• Example ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
  CPY 644 Psychology of Careers
• Required and Supplemental Readings,
  Fall 1996
• Class 1, Historical Perspectives
  (8/26) Parsons, F. (1909).
• Excerpts from Choosing a vocation.
  New York Agatha Press
• (reprinted 1967).

20
In Parsons Book he Reveals 10 Principles

• It is better to choose a vocation than merely to
  hunt a job
• No one should choose a vocational without careful
  self-analysis, that is thorough, honest, and
  under guidance
• The youth should have a large survey of the field
  of vocations and not simply drop into the
  convenient or accidental position
• Expert advice (from persons having studied
  vocations) must be better and safer for a young
  person than the absence of it
• Process the information on paper

21
Parsons Principles continued.

• No person should decide for another what
  occupation he should choose In the choice of
  vocations, consider (1) understanding of self,
  (2) knowledge of the requirements of the work,
  and (3) true reasoning on the relations among
  these two
• Counselor should be frank and honest
• Special effort is made to develop analytic power
• One who would be a vocational counselor should
  familiarize himself with a high degree of
  industrial knowledge

22
Three main points that have not changed much
since then.

• Awareness of self and personal strengths and
  weaknesses
• Awareness of the requirements of different kinds
  of jobs/occupations
• Making informed choices / matches of self with a
  job.

23
Current Goals of Career Education in Arkansas

• Provide students with an opportunity for
  self-analysis.
• Provide students with experiences which allow
  tentative selection of a career.
• Provide students with a general knowledge of
  careers.
• Develop understanding of what is required to
  enter a career.
• Develop a plan of how to achieve that goal.

24
Parsons Work is Sited

• At the beginning of the century, Parsons
  emphasized the importance of helping young people
  transition from school to work. After more than
  eight decades, half of the nation's student
  population is still beset with circumstances that
  limit their prospects for a good life.
• Original Source The William T. Grant Foundation
  Commission on Work, Family, and Citizenship,
  1988.
• Secondary Source Career Guidance and
  Counseling Recent Legislation Office of Special
  Populations' Brief Volume 6, Number 3 (January,
  1995)

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Choosing a Vocation Parsons, 1909, p. 4.

• There is no part of life where the need for
  guidance is more empathic than in transition from
  school to work--the choice of a vocation,
  adequate preparation for it, and the attainment
  of efficiency and success. The building of a
  career is quite as difficult a problem as the
  building of a house, yet few ever sit down with
  pencil and paper, with expert information and
  counsel, to plan a working career and deal with
  the life problem scientifically, as they would
  deal with the problem of building a house, taking
  the advice of an architect to help them.
• Secondary Source Career Guidance and
  Counseling Recent Legislation Office of Special
  Populations' Brief Volume 6, Number 3 (January,
  1995)

26
Charles Prosser and his Doctrine of Social
Efficiency

• Click on the address below to see these theorems.
  
• http//www.clt.astate.edu/dagnew/charles_prosser_T
  heorems.htm

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Relevant Events of the Times

• Smith Lever Act, 1914
• WW I - military in need of placement specialists.
  Focus shifts toward assessment
• Smith Hughes Act, Vocational Education Act of
  1917
• Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1918
• Agricultural advancements (Mechanical, Chemical)
  released workers from the farms.
• The Great Depression 1930s
• 1938 Congress passes the Fair Labor Standards
  Act, which establishes the forty-hour work week,
  the minimum wage, and bans child labor in
  interstate commerce

28
Time Marched On!

• EK Strong - tried to upgrade interest assessment
  to level of Binets IQ assessment
• 1920s -- Minn. Mech. Abilities Project (later to
  become Minn. Employment Stabilization Research
  Institute)
• 1927 -- Strong Vocational Interest Blank for Boys
• 1939 -- First Dictionary of Occupational Titles
• 1941 -- WWII, Gave us the GI Bill, and brought
  women in large numbers out of the home and into
  the factories.

29
CHANGES IN THE EMPHASIS IN COUNSELING AFTER THE
1950'S

• It shifted away from an occupational choice to..
• An analysis of why and how a person chooses a
  particular occupation.

30
Time Marched On!

• More women in the work force
• Veterans training programs
• Fewer farmers needed
• Level of skill needed to work in industry was
  increasing
• More people were going to college
• Some states began building technical schools

31
Related Historical Events

• 1954 -- Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.
  The Supreme Court unanimously agrees that
  segregated schools are "inherently unequal" and
  must be abolished.
• 1955 -- The Vietnam War begins
• 1957 --Soviet Union launches Sputnik, a satellite
• 1958 -- National Defense Education Act - provided
  assistance to state and local school systems for
  strengthening instruction in science,
  mathematics, foreign languages, and other
  critical subjects improvement of state
  statistical services guidance, counseling, and
  testing services and training institutes higher
  education student loans and fellowships
  experimentation and dissemination of information
  on more effective use of television motion
  picture, and related media for education
  purposes and vocational education for technical
  occupations, such as data processing, necessary
  to the national defense.

32
Career Related GamesMilton Bradley -- 1955
33
"WHAT SHALL I BE" GAME EXCITING GAME OF CAREERS
FOR GIRLS 1966 Selchow Righter co.
34
Time Marched On! continued.

• 1963 -- Manpower Development and Training Act -
  provided training in new and improved skills for
  the unemployed and underemployed.
• 1963 -- Vocational Education Acts of 1963 -
  increased federal support of vocational
  education, including support of residential
  vocational schools, vocational work study
  programs, and research, training, and
  demonstrations in vocational education.

35
Time Marched On! continued

• 1963 -- Higher Education Facilities Act -
  authorized grants and loans for classrooms and
  laboratories in public community colleges and
  technical institutes as well as for
  undergraduate and graduate facilities in other
  institutions of higher education.
• 1964 -- Economic Opportunity Act - authorized
  grants for college work-study programs for
  students of low income families established a
  Job Corps program and authorized support for work
  training programs to provide education and
  vocational training and work experience for
  unemployed youth provided training and work
  experience opportunities in welfare programs
  authorized support of education and training
  activities and community action programs
  including Head Start, Follow Through, Upward
  Bound authorized the establishment of the
  Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA).

36
Remember!

• Career Education is a sub-category of Vocational
  Education (Career and Technical Education).
• As Vocational Education grows so does Career
  Education, but it is only a small part of the
  total vocational program, Until

37
Sidney J. Marland (Commissioner of
Education-1971)

• He proposed an emphasis on career education
• In a 1971 address to the convention of the
  National Association of Secondary School
  Principals, he proposed that persons completing
  school programs at grade 12 would be ready to
  enter higher education or to enter useful and
  rewarding employment.

38
MARLINS Four-Fold Planfor Career Development,
Components 1 and 2

• Major improvements and updating of occupational
  education emphasizing newer vocational fields and
  sound educational base underlying all specific
  skills training
• More flexible options for high school graduates
  to continue on to higher education or to enter
  the world of work

39
MARLINS Plan, Continued Components 3 and 4

• A closer liaison of vocational education and
  people from business, industry, and organized
  labor with more work experience opportunities for
  students
• A new commitment at all levels -- federal, state,
  and local -- toward developing leadership and
  commitment to the concept of career education

40
Experimental models for career education
developed by the U.S. Office of Education

• Four models
• School Based Model
• Employee-Experience-Based Model
• Rural-Residential-Based Model
• Home-Community-Based Model
• 1971
• 15 million

41
School Based Model

• The object of Model 1 was to develop and test a
  career education system (K-12) in six school
  systems (representing varying sizes, geographic
  locations, and cultural ethnic populations) that
  would help students to develop (a) a
  comprehensive awareness of career options (b) a
  concept of self that is in keeping with a
  work-oriented society, including positive
  attitudes about work, school, and society, and a
  sense of satisfaction resulting from successful
  experience in these areas (c) personal
  characteristics, such as self-respect,
  initiative, and resourcefulness (d) a realistic
  understanding of the relationships between the
  work of work and education to assist individuals
  in becoming contributing members of society and
  (e) the ability to enter employment in a selected
  occupational area and/or to go on for further
  education.

42
Employee-Experience-Based Model

• The objectives of Model 2, the employer-based
  model (also called experience-based) (17), were
  (a) to provide an alternative educational program
  for students, aged 13-18, in an employer-based
  setting (b) to unify the positive elements of
  academic, general, and vocational curricula into
  a comprehensive career education program (c) to
  increase the relevance of education to the world
  of work and (d) to broaden the base of community
  participation, particularly by involving public
  and private employers more directly in education.

43
Rural-Residential-Based Model

• This experimental demonstration activity involved
  various individuals, agencies, and other
  resources in preparing adults and children of
  rural unemployed and underemployed families in
  Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, North Dakota, South
  Dakota, and Nebraska for rewarding employment.
• Goals (a) contribute to their own growth and to
  the growth of their society and (b) make prudent
  use of their personal as well as their society's
  resources and energies. The ultimate goal of the
  residential-based model was to determine whether
  low-income rural residents could develop career
  roles through specially adapted in-house
  experiences.

44
Home-Community-Based Model

• The fourth model, a home-community effort, used
  television and radio programming to encourage
  unemployed or underemployed adults to take
  advantage of local retraining programs. Through
  the use of the home-based model, the U.S. Office
  of Education hoped to (a) enhance the quality of
  the home as a learning center, (b) develop
  educational delivery systems into the home and
  community, (c) provide new career education
  programs for adults, (d) establish a guidance and
  career placement system to assist individuals in
  occupational and related roles, and (e) develop
  more competent workers

45
Time Marched On! continued

• 1973 Comprehensive Employment and Training Act -
  consolidated previous labor and public service
  programs authorized funds for employment
  counseling, supportive services, classroom
  training, training on the job, work experience,
  and public service employment incorporated
  essential principles of revenue sharing, giving
  state and local governments more control over use
  of funds and determination of programs.

46
Terrel Bell was First Commissioner of Education
After MarlandNote President Carter make this a
Cabinet level position

• He continued the push for career education.
• Section 406, Title IV, Public Law 93-380
  (Educational Amendments of 1974), made career
  education a law of the land, establishing a
  National Advisory Council on Career Education.

47
Three Main Provisions of Title IV, Section 406
of P.L. 93-380 (1974)

• Every child should, by the time he has completed
  secondary school, be prepared for gainful or
  maximum employment and for full participation in
  our society according to his or her ability.

48
Provision 2

• It is the obligation of each local educational
  agency to provide that preparation for all
  children (including handicapped children and all
  other children who are educationally
  disadvantaged) within the school district of such
  agency and

49
Provision 3

• Each State and local educational agency should
  carry out a program of career education options
  which are designed to prepare each child for
  maximum employment and participation in our
  society according to his or her ability.

50
THE CAREER EDUCATION INCENTIVE ACT 95-207 (1977)

• Purpose of the Act
• to assist states and local educational agencies
  and institutions of postsecondary education,
  including collaborative arrangements with the
  appropriate agencies and organizations, in making
  education as preparation for work, and as a means
  of relating work values to other life roles and
  choices (such as family life), a major goal of
  all who teach and all who learn by increasing the
  emphasis they place on career awareness,
  exploration, decision making, and planning, and
  to do so in a manner which will promote equal
  opportunity in making career choices through the
  elimination of bias and stereotyping in such
  activities, including bias and stereotyping on
  account of race, sex, age, economic status, or
  handicap.

51
Career Opportunities Act

• 1998 -- Federal Legislation
• More on this later in semester

52
CHANGES IN THEORIES UNDERLYING VOCATIONAL
GUIDANCE SINCE THE TURN OF THE CENTURYas noted
by Calhoun and Finch

• Once is not enough
• The single occupational-choice-at-a-point-in time
  focus of the early practitioners of career
  guidance has given way to a broader, more
  comprehensive view of the individual and his or
  her development over the life span.

53
Age focus is out the window

• The specific age focus of traditional career
  guidance is not valid. Instead of the notion
  that a permanent occupational choice is made at
  some point, usually during late adolescence, we
  now understand that occupational choice is a
  process which takes place over a period of time
  and is a result of a combination of
  interacting determinants.

54
Work to understand who you are

• People at work are no longer seen only as objects
  through which occupations are analyzed and
  classified. Rather we now understand that a work
  setting can be used as a medium to help people
  better understand themselves.

55
Continuous Process, Cradle to Grave

• Career guidance activities are important over the
  life span of the individual therefore,
  educational personnel at all level, kindergarten
  through adult, have a part to play. When viewed
  as a continuous process, career guidance is a
  program in the mainstream of education rather
  than an ancillary service.

56
Human Development

• Career guidance is more than a simple process of
  matching people to jobs it is a complex process
  of human development and should be treated as a
  major educational goal.

57
Career Education in Arkansas

• Since the mid 1970s (ASU involved from the start)
• Workshops/Projects developing Objectives
  Curriculum
• Workshops and projects to develop Materials to
  support the teacher (posters, materials for
  hands-on activities).
• ACOTA Arkansas Career Orientation Teachers
  Association.
• 1991 -- AR adopted a statewide text for the
  course (Your Career Adventure)
• Threat to CO as a course 1996, but survived with
  great support.
• 1998 -- AR dropped the text for the course

58
In Summary

• Describe the historical development of career
  education.
• Who were the key people associated with career
  education?
• What are the guiding principles of career
  selection or guidance and how have they have
  evolved?
• State the purposes of career education in
  Arkansas.

59
Review of Parsons Principles

• It is better to choose a vocation than merely to
  _____ for a job
• No one should choose a vocational without careful
  _____ -____, and with guidance
• The youth should have a large survey of the field
  of vocations and not simply drop into the
  __________ or accidental position
• Expert advice (from persons having studied
  vocations) must be better and _____ for a young
  person than the absence of it
• Process the information on ______.

60
Review of Parsons Principles Cont..

• No person should decide for _____ what occupation
  he should choose
• In the choice of vocations, consider (1)
  understanding of self, (2) knowledge of the
  requirements of the work, and (3) true reasoning
  on the ________ among these two
• Counselor should be frank and __________.
• Special effort is made to develop analytic power
• One who would be a vocational counselor should
  ____________ himself with a high degree of
  industrial knowledge

61
Time Marches On...
Any Questions?