Career guidance in England today: reform,accidental injury or attempted murder?

ABSTRACT

In 2011 England's career guidance profession lost its ‘own’ public service organisation and its former dedicated stream of public funding. The immediate causes lay in decisions by the government of the day, but this article revisits the profession's history to seek explanations for its later vulnerability. It is argued that decisions taken early in the profession's history, specifically its complete separation from adult employment services and basing claims to professional expertise almost wholly on occupational psychology, though maybe right at the time, were to have fateful consequences. The article proceeds to argue that career guidance will certainly survive its recent trauma, but the most likely outcome of the current ‘reforms’ – a market in career guidance services – will not create the kind of comprehensive education-to-work bridging service that was once intended and which is still needed.     

Christian Perspectives on Spiritual Needs of a Human Being

SUMMARY

Each human being, independent of culture, time, and age has three fundamental needs. A need for biophysical exchanges, a need for psychosocial exchanges, and a need for spiritual-integrated exchanges. Spiritual needs are not separated from biological, social, psychological, and material aspects of life. Christian spirituality today is oriented toward responding to life, to its beauty and injustices, to the universe, and is responsive and responsible to the poor. Some specific tasks for older people today are commitment to the great causes of justice, peace, and environmental protection, and a deeper bond of love for God and fellow man.     

Vocational interest structures for Asian Americans,Middle-Eastern Americans and Native Americans on the 2005 Strong Interest Inventory

This study examined whether the vocational interests of Asian Americans, Middle-Eastern Americans, and Native Americans, as measured by the 2005 Strong Interest Inventory (SII), followed Holland's (1997) calculus hypotheses for a RIASEC ordering. The structures of interests of these three racial/ethnic groups were examined for fit with two structural models: (1) a less-stringent model requiring a circular RIASEC ordering and (2) a more stringent model requiring equal distances between adjacent interest types. Individuals who completed the 2005 Strong Interest Inventory were included in the sample (N = 22,394), and the overall sample was divided between racial/ethnic groups, gender, and professional status (i.e. student and employed adults). Results from randomization tests of hypothesized order and circular unidimensional scaling analyses found that a circular RIASEC order is applicable to Asian American, Middle-Eastern American and Native American students and employed adults, regardless of gender, when measured by the 2005 Strong Interest Inventory. Results from this study indicate that the current version of the Strong Interest Inventory measures vocational interests in a manner that strongly aligns with Holland's calculus hypothesis for both men and women.     

An investigation of African-American women's prestige domain interests and choice goals using Social Cognitive Career Theory

Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT; Lent, Brown & Hackett, 1994) provides a framework for understanding career development, taking into account background and contextual variables using a social cognitive perspective. Given SCCT's focus on both personal and contextual factors, it has been widely applied to understanding the career development of ethnic minorities and women. This study extends the SCCT framework by testing the SCCT career choice model with variables defined along the prestige dimension, in a sample of 198 African-American college women. Path analysis results supported SCCT propositions for the relations of prestige self-efficacy and prestige outcome expectations with prestige of vocational interests, and of prestige outcome expectations and prestige of vocational interests with prestige of choice goals. The relation of prestige self-efficacy to prestige of choice goals was fully mediated by prestige of vocational interests; the relation between prestige outcome expectations and prestige of choice goals was partially mediated by prestige of vocational interests. Contrary to SCCT, the hypothesized relation of prestige self-efficacy to prestige outcome expectations was non-significant. These findings provide preliminary evidence for the utility of SCCT in explaining the development of prestige-related career interests and choice goals among African-American women.     

Sexe du tuteur et perception de l’avenir professionnel de jeunes en alternance : une recherche qualitative

The study aims to undertake the influence of sex roles of tutors in enterprises, supervising young adults in alternating training in Higher Education. On the basis of workplace mentoring models and works, twenty young adults have been interviewed. Half of them were supervised by a woman and the other half by a man. The results underline the key role of the variable sex to analyze the relationships in enterprises. They show that this variable has to be studied regarding the particular sexual division of work in each work context as well as with the social representations the young adults have of the occupations.     

“They never listen”: towards a grounded theory of the role played by trusted adults in the spiritual lives of children

This qualitative study addresses the lack of research into the role of trusted adults in the spiritual lives of children. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine children from a British primary school and the data analysed using a grounded theory approach. Six categories were identified outlining the reciprocal relationship of unavailability and withholding between children and their trusted adults and how children made sense of spirituality in the absence of explicit guidance. It was found that the children had little opportunity for negotiating a shared understanding or experience of spirituality with adults and, as a result, either preserved an isolated and secret sense of spirituality or accepted what they observed to be their trusted adults' stance. The practical and theoretical implications of the children's responses in the absence of trusted adults are discussed and recommendations are made for practice and future research.     

The concept of evolution and revolution

We hypothesize that there exist certain similarities between the strategies adopted by a biological organism, an individual or a social group, when faced by an aggressor. These strategies consist in either minimizing the aggression or else combating it immediately, in order to preserve, in the short term, the identity of the system under attack. One of the strategies commonly adopted for this purpose is retrocession, permitting the biological, neurobiological organism, or the social individual or group to elude certain environmental elements and return to a situation in which other escape routes may be taken.

In the long term, preservation of the external identity is accomplished by modification of the internal identity. Man uses in vivo or, after “extrusion,” ex vivo immunizing and cognitive functions to cope with the environment. He is thus able to create, ex vivo, therapeutic techniques by manipulating internal identity. In order to accomplish this, a profound knowledge is needed, at the level of each individual, of the functional mechanisms of biological and neurobiological identities.

Though social and biological sciences are progressing, they have great difficulties in finding the common language necessary to communicate productively. Analogies between these two domains, that we shall attempt to illustrate, may contribute to facilitating such communication.     

初一新生学习适应过程研究

为探讨初一新生学习适应规律和特点,采用“初中生学习适应问卷”,追踪调查了450名初一新生。结果表明: (1)初一新生的学习适应性总体发展呈“V”型趋势,即入学后第一个月没有明显的不适应感,入学后两个月左右出现明显的不适应感,四个半月后又有所好转; (2)新生学习适应性在性别、生源地区、学校类型上存在显著差异。建议学校和教师在新生入学后的第二、三个月加强学习适应指导。     

小学生不同课堂情境的成就归因及再归因训练

在广泛调查的基础上,考察了小学生对不同课堂情境的成就归因特点;并运用韦纳的归因训练模式与策略指导相结合的方法,根据不同课堂的成就情境对小学生进行再归因训练。结果表明：小学生把课堂成就归因于努力、策略、能力、基础、兴趣、目的、难度。教法、心境和家境等１０个主要因素,这些因素除家境外,均在不同课堂的成就情境中存在显著的差异;韦纳的归因训练模式与策略指导相结合的再归因训练能有效地改变小学生对不同课堂情境的成就归因倾向,增强其学习动机水平,提高学业成绩。