Secondary Career and Technical Education and Comprehensive School Reform: Implications for Research and Practice

Abstract

In the 1990s, federal legislation authorizing funding for secondary vocational education, increasingly called career and technical education (CTE), began to mandate accountability requirements such as improved academic achievement. These requirements have necessitated a search for ways to integrate CTE into broader school reforms that have improved student achievement as their goal. This review examines research on the effects of CTE reform efforts in general and on efforts to meld CTE with comprehensive secondary school reforms. The authors found that the intersection of CTE with comprehensive school reform is under-researched. However, the studies reviewed here reveal the potential benefit for research and practice in re-examining CTE as a means of preparing our nation’s youth for the future.

Improving Middle School Student Engagement Through Career-Relevant Instruction in the Core Curriculum

“…These findings are consistent with previous research suggesting that student career exploration can have positive effects on school engagement (Castellano et al, 2003;Kenny et al, 2006). The data also support the theoretical propositions of possible-selves theory (Markus & Nurius, 1986), which proposes that students will attend to their learning and view school as having more value when class content is provided in the context of information that the student values or considers relevant for future benefits and choices.…”

“…Studies of school-to-work programs offered in high schools have consistently found that students in these programs exhibit higher psychosocial school engagement and lower rates of dropout than students not participating in career exploration (Castellano, Stringfield, & Stone, 2003;Plank, 2001). In a longitudinal study of low-income ninth-grade students, researchers reported that students with higher levels of career planning sustained higher levels of school valuing and feelings of belonging to their school (Kenny, Blustein, Hasse, Jackson, & Perry, 2006).…”

Race cars and the hellbox: Understanding the development of proficiency among digital art students

“…The idea that workplace education fulfils unmet industry needs is implicit in the context of competency-based standards endorsed by government (Tight 1998;Blackwell et al 2001), or accountability requirements in career and technical education set by professional associations (Hargraves 2000;Castellano and Stringfield 2003). This was reflected in a pair of government reports published in the United Kingdom, known as the Dearing Report and the Fryer Report, each of which supported more workplace-centric education (Tight 1998;Blackwell et al 2001).…”

A combined social action, mixed methods approach to vocational guidance efficacy research

“…Department of Education, 2000). Over the past 15 to 20 years, evidence linking indicators of academic success (e.g., grades, school attendance) and indicators of socioeconomic success (e.g., annual income, college enrolment) with indicators of career development (e.g., career exploration, career self-efficacy) has grown at a modest level (e.g., Castellano, Stringfield, & Stone, 2003;Fouad, 1995;Gysbers & Henderson, 2000;Lapan, Gysbers, & Petroski, 2001). Yet, these programs still do not represent mainstream approaches to school dropout prevention in the U.S. (Prevatt & Kelly, 2003).…”