This study documents how organizational strategies underlying college counseling departments modify counselors’ ability to perform their academic and college advising duties. To examine this, fifteen semi-structured, in-depth interviews with public high school counselors in Southern California were conducted. A district’s commitment to college access and opportunity, as well as parents’ expectations for maintaining a college-going culture, shaped the nature of college counseling and organizational habitus in a school. Counselors reported that access to different forms of institutional support and resources diminish or exacerbate the structural constraints known to surface in public schools. This influenced when and how counselors advised students, which offered different views of the educational opportunity structure. Additionally, findings indicate that both college preparation programs and culturally sensitive counselors work to remedy educational disparities and increase the college enrollment rates of working-class minority students.

This dissertation pays attention to opinions of parents and students on the prestige of various types of education on secondary schools in Písek. The dissertation presents conclusions of several Czech as well as international studies, dealing with the matter of secondary school education. Further on it describes some circumstances influencing secondary school education. It also introduces historical development and the present of Czech secondary school education and the system of secondary school education in some of other European states. It characterises various secondary schools in Písek and also looks at a secondary school student from the psycho-sociological point of view. The data obtained from a personal qualitative research are further on interpreted an evaluated and in the following discussion compared with the findings of the initial research. The most prestigious type of secondary education amongst students as well as their parents is general secondary school education followed by specialized secondary school education and finally vocational education. It is evident that the parents' evaluation differs and is also influenced by the importance for further professional life. Cultural capital also plays a very important role. Parents prefer the type of specialized secondary school education followed by a graduation exam. The prestige of all types of secondary school education has recently been decreasing especially due to the absence of entrance examinations and badly established education financing system and a high number of private secondary schools.