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A research report submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Nursing Johannesburg, 2014 / Career guidance teachers have an important role to play in the career choices of high school learners by presenting them with information on different careers so that informed decisions can be made. It follows that the amount and quality of information that such teachers have and their views or perceptions of a career may have either a positive or negative influence on learners’ choices, in this instance, nursing as a career choice. High school learners’ declining interest in nursing as a career of choice has led to questions about career guidance teachers’ knowledge regarding nursing as a career, the attributes and contemporary roles of nurses and to what extent they suggest nursing to enquiring learners. If career guidance teachers’ perceptions about nursing influence recruitment into the profession, then it is important to determine what these perceptions are and what role they play in suggesting or not suggesting nursing as a career to high school learners. The purpose of the study was to determine the perceptions of career guidance or Life Orientation (LO) teachers in influencing high school learners’ choosing or not choosing nursing as a career. The study was delimited to Life Orientation teachers of three Johannesburg districts in Gauteng. The study objectives were to determine the frequency and source of requests for nursing information directed to career guidance teachers; to explore what career guidance teachers believe are important attributes of nurses; to determine the type of student in respect of personality and academic attributes that career guidance teachers would typically refer to a nursing programme, and to determine career guidance teachers’ perceptions of the roles and responsibilities of nurses currently and in the future. Data were collected in 2011 from September to December. The results showed that Life Orientation (LO) teachers in Gauteng do not receive a high number of requests about nursing from neither learners nor parents; just over 40% receive between one to five learner requests per year. A few teachers have suggested nursing to approximately 20 learners in the past five years; experienced teachers are more likely than inexperienced ones (p=0.0139) to suggest nursing as a career; LO teachers’ age and gender have no influence on them suggesting nursing as a career. Having studied the subject Life Sciences is the most important academic variable for referral to study nursing; learners who are caring and who enjoy working with people are considered suitable for nursing; these are also ranted as the most important personality attributes, followed by being hardworking/diligent and loving. Most LO teachers (63.0%) in this study were aware that nurses’ roles have changed over time but were not knowledgeable about the extent of role change and what the roles and responsibilities of contemporary nurses are.

This thesis presents a gendered analysis of factors that shape adolescent attitudes to Information Technology (IT) at key stages in their education. It draws on career decision-making literature, psychological self-efficacy literature and some of the more salient feminist literature. Results of interviews with students in junior, middle and senior secondary-schools in Australia are presented alongside those from students studying IT at two universities. This research provides relevant and current insight into reasons why females are not choosing IT courses to the same extent as males, that is not captured in the existing literature. The study found that many young women and men, while being almost equal in IT use and computer literacy, do not consider IT as a valid and independent discipline for future study or as a career. It found that IT rarely entered students’ schematic repertoire of possible future careers, a schematic repertoire strongly influenced by parental opinion at all stages of education. / It found a surprising proportion of the university students interviewed currently studying IT, did not consider this degree as their first choice and were often not convinced that they would continue in the career after graduation. This thesis concluded that while IT is a varied discipline that is unique in its many applications, to many students the discipline is predominately aligned to hardware and associated objects. It found that there is a deficit in student knowledge of what an IT career involves beyond that of the most stereotypical portrayal of a programmer, and that this deficit of knowledge is evident in both genders. It is apparent from this study that the lack of women in IT is not necessarily a gender issue, but an issue embedded in the image of the IT discipline, an image that lacks the status of a professional career.

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Nowadays, the swift augmentation of Indonesia¡¦s economy is projected to maintain well into the subsequently decade. Simultaneously, the nation is still experiencing a lack in managerial and professional personnel. The gist of this study was to investigate the purpose of study abroad and to analyze the factors that affect to the career choice of Indonesian students in Taiwan as example. This research was expected to know the directions of the Indonesian students (samples= 115 Indonesian students; population= 615 Indonesian students in Taiwan) in the future. The research was done by using the survey method. Initially the descriptive statistics was used and frequency distributions for questions were established. The result of this research was satisfied the purpose of study when it found out many factors and conditions of working had influenced on career choice of Indonesian students.

Currently, there is a shortage of professors preparing personnel to teach in high need areas (e.g., special education, English language learners) at institutions of higher education (IHE). The purpose of the present study was to examine the motivations or influencers that impelled individuals to pursue careers in IHEs as professors in personnel preparation. Data were collected using Motivations for Choosing Academia as a Profession (MCAP) and a 10-item Big Five Inventory (BFI-10). Two hundred eighty-nine professors of education representing the four U.S. census regions participated in the present study. The MCAP is a 25-item instrument designed to measure retrospective motivation of faculty decisions to enter the professoriate. The development of the MCAP is described and an exploratory factor analysis was employed to examine the psychometric validity of the instrument. Three factors emerged and implications are discussed. Data were analyzed using logistic regression with the dichotomous outcome variable being the area of education in which the professor works (i.e., general or special education).

This thesis investigated the choice of nursing among immigrant women from Nigeria in Canada. I sought to understand why increasing numbers of immigrant women from Nigeria with degrees and professional backgrounds are opting for careers in nursing. The study was conducted through an antiracist feminist lens and uncovered the many dimensions in which African immigrant women encounter marginalization and discrimination in the Canadian labour market, resulting from entrenched norms and values. I placed centre stage the voices of the Nigerian women, and through their narratives found that the decision to change careers was based on barriers they faced, the availability of jobs within nursing, as well as personal perceptions and interactions with other Nigerian women who had successfully changed careers. The conclusion reached is that despite the structural barriers faced, the choice of nursing had overall benefited the women, elevating their status and improving their economic situation.

This thesis investigated the choice of nursing among immigrant women from Nigeria in Canada. I sought to understand why increasing numbers of immigrant women from Nigeria with degrees and professional backgrounds are opting for careers in nursing. The study was conducted through an antiracist feminist lens and uncovered the many dimensions in which African immigrant women encounter marginalization and discrimination in the Canadian labour market, resulting from entrenched norms and values. I placed centre stage the voices of the Nigerian women, and through their narratives found that the decision to change careers was based on barriers they faced, the availability of jobs within nursing, as well as personal perceptions and interactions with other Nigerian women who had successfully changed careers. The conclusion reached is that despite the structural barriers faced, the choice of nursing had overall benefited the women, elevating their status and improving their economic situation.

The transition from education to the labour market is a constant theme for sociological investigation, but the study of occupational choice itself has occupied a peripheral place in the theory and research literature for the past two decades. Of particular concern here, neither extant theories of occupational choice nor the contemporary youth studies literature offer satisfactory accounts of the patterns of girls' aspirations and the social processes in which these are embedded. It is argued here that occupational choice processes are a critical switch in the social reproduction of gender relations. Specifically situated subjects construct a transitions biography from a range of legitimated and concretely available alternatives. The possibilities are specified through the terms of gender discourse which, in describing the confluence of circumstances and understandings, represents the social space in which girls are positioned and position themselves across time. A model of the modalities of gender relations is developed and explored through a study of primarily working class girls aged 11-14 and 14-16 between 1983-1986 who were attending three inner London comprehensives. The data were collected by cross-sectional survey (N = 169) and interview (N=61) and by longitudinal interview (N=37). These girls see occupational structure in highly gendered and partial terms, corresponding to the specific social worlds they inhabit. Over time, perspectives and aspirations focus increasingly on female-typed jobs. Within this, their expectations reflect what is judged realistically available. Such processes of gendered closure are modified by educational achievement and by schooling milieu in relation with family and cultural context. Subject specialisation fixes the course of these processes, since options are generally chosen with current aspiration/ expectation in mind. In sum, gendered transitions across the secondary schooling years are shaped not only institutionally but also socially and culturally by girls' personal attempts to resolve the contradictory puzzle of production/reproduction relations under modern patri3 archy and in the light of the resources at their disposal. Most trajectories inevitably prefigure accommodative arrangements and do not threaten social reproduction processes, but this does not imply non-critical and automatic consent. The potential for critical consciousness is fostered by various cross-pressures in the specific configurations of girls' lives, but the partial insights they open up are held in check both ideologically and through social-educational selection/ allocation.