The function of academic and non-academic criteria in employers' selection strategies

The different ways in which employers use educational qualifications and non-academic criteria in their recruitment and selection of young people are explored. Five different types of selection strategy are identified, each of which is characterised by a different balance between the use of academic and non-academic criteria. After a consideration of the functions that educational qualifications perform in the different strategies, the nonacademic criteria are examined in more detail. The paper concludes with an examination of the implications of these findings for careers guidance.     

Exploring young people's perceptions relevant to counselling: A qualitative study

Findings are presented from a qualitative study exploring young people's perceptions that are relevant to the provision of a youth counselling service. Data were collected through individual and group interviews with a sample of 42 young people, most of whom were between 15 and 18 years old. The data were analysed using a grounded theory approach. Two key categories emerged from this analysis: factors which hinder young people's willingness to seek counselling, and factors which would encourage young people to make use of counselling. Specific themes within these categories are explored, and the wider implications of findings from the study are discussed.     

Talking about unemployment with school-leavers

Research is reported concerning the views of a variety of professionals as to appropriate ways of talking about unemployment with 16-year-old school-leavers. Preparation in schools for the possibility of unemployment is discussed, as well as issues for those in contact with young people without a job after they leave school. The ways in which professionals talk to young people about unemployment appear to vary substantially. The findings suggest that in adopting a particular approach a professional will be influenced by his beliefs about the labour economy, by his perceptions of young people's wants and needs, and by his own capacity to cope with the feelings involved in re-examining his role in relation to unemployed young people.     

Aging and attitude change.

Social psychologists have proposed a variety of different models to account for people's relative openness to attitude change through the life cycle. Two of the most important models are the impressionable years model, which suggests an especially great openness to change among the young, and the lifelong openness model, which suggests that age is unrelated to openness to attitude change. Two studies were conducted to examine the openness of people of varying ages to attitude change. In both studies, the influence of personal experiences with government agencies on attitudes toward government was examined. The attitudes of older people changed as much or more in response to their personal experiences as did those of younger people. These results support the lifelong openness model of attitude change.     

Post-16 course choice: A challenge for guidance

Some of the findings of a study of young people who had left post-16 education prematurely or switched courses are discussed. The experiences of those who had switched or dropped out from courses once only are compared with those who changed courses several times. The main influences on the young people's decisions, the extent to which they felt prepared for their transitions, and their views of career education and guidance before the end of year 11 and at their post-16 destination, are examined. The findings provide some support for the beneficial effects of career education, but for many it seemed that career education and guidance had little impact. Parents, teachers, friends and the judgements of the young people themselves appeared to be more influential than guidance practitioners on choice of destination. It is argued that it may be unrealistic to expect guidance alone to fully prepare young people for post-compulsory education, particularly when institutional constraints often require premature closures on choices. Some respondents recognised this, and in some ways their limited expectations of career guidance were realistic. It is also argued that from young people's perspectives, at least, switching courses often has positive benefits.     

The need for personal and social education in secondary schools and further education

The need for personal and social education in schools is outlined. Reference is made to the concept of psychological education that is being developed in the United States, and a model of personal growth and career development is described with particular emphasis on areas of personal growth that need to be developed within the school curriculum. Results of a survey of young people's personal and interpersonal problems are presented which give accounts of the range of difficulties 235 fourth year and fifth year boys and girls in secondary education and 36 young people in employment had in their interpersonal relationships with parents, teachers, employers, community authority figures, same- and opposite-sex friends, etc. Information was also obtained on what actually occupied young people's thoughts: the things they found it difficult to cope with and talk about, the things that they felt parents should tell their children, what they would like to talk to their teachers and parents about, and the attributes which they felt they could or could not change for themselves.     

Equality of Opportunity and Differences in Social Circumstances

It is often supposed that the point of equality of opportunity is to create a level playing-field. This is understood in different ways, however. A common proposal is what I call the neutralization view: that people's social circumstances should not differentially affect their life chances in any serious way. I raise problems with this view, before developing an alternative conception of equal opportunity which allows some variations in social circumstances to create differences in life prospects. The meritocratic conception which I defend is grounded in the idea of respect for persons, and provides a less demanding interpretation of fair access to qualifications; it nevertheless places constraints on the behaviour of parents, and has implications for educational provision in schools.     

Cancer counselling in the United Kingdom

Abstract

A national survey of 289 people from a variety of professions (nurses, social workers, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, etc) involved in counselling cancer patients and their families within the United Kingdom obtained a response rate of 82%. The primary findings discussed in this paper cover a range of issues, including the working conditions and responsibilities of the counsellors, what professional qualifications they possess, the extent and availability of supervision and support, as well as the types of counselling intervention employed. Particularly disturbing was the fact that only 25% of our sample had any recognised formal counselling qualification and that 75% did not belong to any professional counselling organisation. In view of the wide diversity of qualifications, salary scales, responsibilities and working conditions and practices amongst the respondents, we propose that the National Health Service (NHS) should establish clearer guidelines as to the minimum acceptable qualifications for people employed as oncology counsellors, and that more adequate provision and resources are made available for training and supervision.     

Career education in france: New objectives and new methods

The objective of French vocational counselling services has changed in recent years from that of matching young people with the occupation to which they are best suited, to that of teaching individuals how to construct career goals. This paper presents a historical overview of career education techniques in France. In particular, it outlines the ADVP (Activation of Personal and Vocational Development) method, the first to have a major impact. Among the other techniques discussed are the PPPP (Psychopedagogy of Personal and Career Planning) and the DAPP (Discovery of Employment Activities and Personal Plans): the former closely resembles the ADVP but is founded on the work of Wallon; the second - based on cognitive dissonance theory - aims at encouraging students to reflect upon and involve themselves in the process of increasing their chances of acquiring the necessary qualifications for the professional activities to which they aspire. The principles underlying these three methods are examined, as is the research conducted to assess their effectiveness.     

Prolonged transitions to uncertain destinations: The implications for careers guidance

A set ofEuro-wide trends is discussed: the prolongation of young people's transitions, the individualisation of their biographies, and the greater uncertainty of their futures. It is argued that youth's new condition is currently being normalised throughout Europe, and that this process is aided by appropriate careers guidance which must be recurrent, customised, and couched in terms of possibilities. Problems that are posed for young people and their advisers in Britain, and in some other countries, by the persistent jobs deficit, the inability of some families to provide the support that youth's new condition requires, and the fact that some forms of vocational education and training are most likely to be dead-ends, are identified.     

Online and offline social networks: Use of social networking sites by emerging adults

Social networking sites (e.g., MySpace and Facebook) are popular online communication forms among adolescents and emerging adults. Yet little is known about young people's activities on these sites and how their networks of “friends” relate to their other online (e.g., instant messaging) and offline networks. In this study, college students responded, in person and online, to questions about their online activities and closest friends in three contexts: social networking sites, instant messaging, and face-to-face. Results showed that participants often used the Internet, especially social networking sites, to connect and reconnect with friends and family members. Hence, there was overlap between participants' online and offline networks. However, the overlap was imperfect; the pattern suggested that emerging adults may use different online contexts to strengthen different aspects of their offline connections. Information from this survey is relevant to concerns about young people's life online.     

The Stigmatizing Effects of Affirmative Action: An Examination of Moderating Variables

Two studies examined (a) the pervasiveness of stigmas of incompetence, (b) the possible moderating effects of qualifications and type of affirmative-action plan, and (c) the influence of an individual's attitudes toward affirmative action on stigmatization of a beneficiary. Results for Study 1 showed that participants evaluated the affirmative-action hiree as less competent and unlikely to have been hired because of qualifications, regardless of the hiree's actual qualifications. Study 2 demonstrated that, while affirmative-action plan had no effect on participants' evaluations, association with affirmative action produced negative evaluations on competence, career progress, and hiring because of qualifications. Attitudes toward affirmative action had a stronger effect on evaluations of the hiree than the qualifications of the hiree. Implications for alleviating stigmatization are discussed.     

Young People's Deliberations on Geographic Mobility: Identity and Cross-Border Relocation

This paper considers how social identities may shape group members' spatial behaviour. Specifically, it reports a small-scale interview study (n  =  30) conducted with young people (17 years of age) living in a Scottish town close to a national border (with England). This border has very little physical presence. However, the psychological significance of a Scottish identification remains strong, and we investigate the ways in which national identities are implicated in young people's deliberations about their future geographic mobility throughout the United Kingdom. Our data suggest that national identity-related considerations are not always salient in our participants' deliberations. Yet, when national identity is salient and mobility is framed in national terms, we find our participants are often cautious about relocating to England. However, our data also suggest that the ways in which a national framing of self and mobility may be consequential is itself diverse.     

Achievement and social goals, persistence-effort, and intentions of sport practice in physical education students

The present study examined the relationship between achievement and social goals, and explored how both types of goals can affect secondary school students' persistence/effort in Physical Education classes, as well as their intention to participate in sport activities after finishing secondary school. A sample of 350 students (aged 15-17) from two high schools in Asturias participated in the study. Multiple regression analysis showed: a) persistence/effort in physical education classes was better explained by social responsibility goals, followed by mastery-approach goals and mastery-avoidance goals; b) achievement goals are the only predictors of young people's intention of practicing sport in the future. Differences were found in these results according to gender and course. These findings help us better understand the processes involved in Physical Education. Finally, implications to improve classes and to achieve young people's more active and higher level of implication in sports are discussed.     

On acquiring knowledge about people and the capacity to pretend: response to Leslie (1987)

Leslie (1987) has proposed a cognitivist model for the young child's "theory of mind" and capacity to pretend. Serious shortcomings in Leslie's nondevelopmental, nonsocial, and restrictively cognitive account are noted, and an alternative thesis is proposed: A young child's knowledge about people is grounded in the experience of affectively charged interpersonal relations, and the child's capacity for pretend play develops on the basis of prior abilities to perceive the nature of other people's relatedness to the world. Clinical phenomena associated with autism and congenital blindness provide evidence for this thesis.     

Pathways to competence: parental adversity and the roles of parenting quality and social support

The authors studied a representative Canadian cohort from the National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth at 3 points in time, when the participants were aged 10-11 years (n = 2,147), 12-13 years (n = 1,976), and 14-15 years (n = 1,762). The presence of parent-related adversity appeared detrimental to young people's emotional and behavioral competence. Parents' self-reports of adversity predicted children's self-reports of their own behavioral functioning 2 years later. The authors identified parenting quality and social support as independent resource variables for young people's competence, rather than protective variables in the face of parent-related adversity. Latent variable path analyses suggested the increasing value of both resource variables over time for all young people.     

New Maps for Old: Guidance and the Reform of Vocational Qualifications

The reform of occupational qualifications in England and Wales being undertaken by the National Council for Vocational Qualifications will affect the qualifications of those who work in guidance and counselling, and the opportunities open to their clients. While early development work concentrated on lower-level qualifications, attention is now turning to higher levels, including occupations like guidance and counselling where interpersonal skills play a major part. The principles underpinning the reform of qualifications are outlined; the project work carried out up to the end of 1991 is described; and some of the implications and issues arising from this work are identified, both for the professional qualifications available, and for the map of the broad fields of guidance and counselling.     

Dynamics of goal pursuit and personality make-up among emerging adults: typology, change over time, and adaptation

In recent years young people's lives have been characterized by postponement of developmental timetables, inconsistencies of transitions, and loss of direction in life. Data from a longitudinal study of Israeli young adults show that the capacity for setting realistic work and love goals reflects inner strengths and is associated with adaptive outcomes. Less-articulated love and work goals are associated with underlying personality difficulties and are predictive of less stable and less adaptive outcomes. The interplay of goal constellations and personality constructs, and its association with adaptive and less adaptive outcomes is presented and discussed.     

The Influence of Affirmative Action on Perceptions of a Beneficiary's Qualifications1

Relative to females, males tended to discount the qualifications of a woman promoted into management. However, the male-female difference was dependent upon the promoting organization's Affirmative Action environment. There were no differences between males and females when females thought that the organization promoting the woman had an Affirmative Action program in place. Under these circumstances females behaved as males in discounting the woman's qualifications. In contrast, females who thought that the organization promoting the woman was anti-Affirmative Action augmented the woman's qualifications. The interpretation of this is that these women viewed the organization's anti-Affirmative Action position as an inhibitory factor that could only have been overcome on the basis of the promoted woman possessing the necessary qualifications. Results are interpreted in relation to practical implications for Affirmative Action programs.     

The Spotlight Effect and the Illusion of Transparency: Egocentric Assessments of How We Are Seen by Others

We review a program of research that examines people's judgments about how they are seen by others. The research indicates that people tend to anchor on their own experience when making such judgments, with the result that their assessments are often egocentrically biased. Our review focuses on two biases in particular, the spotlight effect, or people's tendency tooverestimate the extent to which their behavior and appearance are noticed and evaluated by others, and the illusion of transparency, or people's tendency to overestimate the extent to which their internal states "leak out" and are detectable by others.