This study will offer an insight into the complex living of a group of mid-thirties males in a small neighbourhood and describe their personal career journeys. In particular, the study will highlight the complex influence of social capital, the men’s personal development through the ‘opportunity structure’ (K. Roberts, 1977) and how chance along with place of residence impact on career advancement. There have been numerous studies that have sought to discover why people make stereotypical career choices. More specifically, how male stereotyping can influence career choice and shape identity. However, many studies fail to tackle the influence of neighbourhood and family bonding which engulfs the male individual to create a very close knit masculine gang of individuals. By taking the epistemological position of interpretivism and using a narrative interview approach, along with a life history tradition, this research addresses these shortcomings. Additionally, Bourdieu’s (1985) concept of social field is employed within this study to represent the various social arenas in which young people spend their time. This notion of fields, along with the concepts of ‘habitus’ and ‘capital’ (Bourdieu, 1985, 1986) are seen to create an effective framework for understanding the social worlds of young people and the community in which they belong. The data is drawn from 10 in-depth interviews with men in their mid-thirties, who were born and raised in an inner city neighbourhood. Despite poverty, deprivation and social exclusion, these 10 men now have a career but choose not to leave the neighbourhood of their birth. They have each turned their life around by being confident, persistent, and determined to succeed, thereby empowering other individuals and their community, to build their own ladders out of poverty and towards a brighter future. However, this is a close knit network of friends and family that according to the headteacher in the local secondary school are ‘unwilling to move the boundaries of opportunity and rely too much on the ways of the past’. Each interviewee has a story to tell and these stories are interwoven and analysed through common themes explored in depth in the thesis. These stories map out a career trajectory that is based on rites of passage into adulthood and an adult sense of masculinity. Throughout the interviews evidence is provided to support the argument that ‘opportunity structure’ (K. Roberts, 1977) plays an important role in the career path of young people. Furthermore, it is argued that career choice is a developmental process with many twists and turns along the way. However, it is further argued that an identity based on age, location, ethnicity, along with common interests and a shared purpose, creates a closed shop ethos, where education and employment are shaped by elders within the family and close friends. In fact, because everyone knows everyone else, a strong common bond between family and friends is displayed, this creates strong loyalties which are manifested in the behaviour of each individual. This situation creates a large gang of individuals whose organisation has a hierarchical structure, starting from new entrants or recruits, through to elders at the top. Membership through birth is non-negotiable and to refuse to be part of this wider family could result in psychological and physiological consequences for the individual.

Synen en individ har på arbete och tron på sin förmåga inom yrkeslivet formas i många fall redan under tonåren. Anknytningsrelationerna till föräldrarna och det sociala stödet inom en familj påverkar den enskilda individens karriärsidentitet och framtida yrkesval. Studien syftar till att belysa aspekter av hur den upplevda synen på tonåren i efterhand gällande familjerelationer, skolgången och synen på arbete har spelat roll för enskilda individers nuvarande yrkesval, karriärsidentitet, och tron på den egna förmågan. Studien har genomförts genom kvalitativa intervjuer av en grupp chefer (med 5 chefer och 4 icke-chefer), och visade bland annat på att cheferna upplevde ett större socialt stöd från sin familj under tonåren, jämfört med icke-cheferna. Resultatet diskuteras utifrån aspekter som berör det sociala stödet betydelse för framtida karriärsval, och vikten av skolans betydelse för framtida yrkesval och karriärsidentitet. Vilket ska ha en stor betydelse för individer som har en lägre socioekonomisk bakgrund

Employing Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, this study will examine the origins, creation, and implementation of Ontario’s Career Studies course as it relates to existing economic and workplace practices. Specifically, two broad aspects of the course will be addressed. First, the expectations for the course will be examined to determine the general approach to workplace education as outlined in course curriculum documents and approved-for-use textbooks. Also included in this analysis will be the ways Career Studies teachers interpret and deliver course material. Secondly, this study will uncover the opportunities students have to control and empower themselves in their career development. This includes an exploration of the alternatives to current workplace and economic practices as presented in the course materials, as well as the strategies emphasized for students to adopt in their career planning. At the moment Career Studies, like other career education and guidance programs in Canada, presents current neo-liberal market and labour trends as permanent and outside the control of human agency. In response to these trends, students are expected to improve their marketability for employment through individual and competitive career-development practices, in effect distancing themselves from others through formal credential attainment and attitudinal adjustments that best suit employers. Opportunities for students to experience collective empowerment through alternative workplace and economic practices are noticeably absent from the course. This study wishes to shed light on some of the shortcomings of career education in Ontario and to propose recommendations that truly situate students as architects of their career planning. Employing Hyslop-Margison and Graham’s (2003) Principles for Democratic Learning (PDL), this study concludes that opportunities for students to critically examine and question current workplace practices, explore alternatives to the status quo, and, most importantly, understand the social elements behind current workplace and economic conditions, will better position students to control their future work lives.

This qualitative study critically analyzes the extent to which the Career Pathing Policy (2006) of the Msunduzi Municipality reflects the requirements of the national government frameworks. The study further explores the parallels between the Msunduzi Municipality's experience of drafting a Career Pathing Policy (2006) and international experiences. International experiences were used to explore similarities and differences with a view to draw conclusions about the Msunduzi Municipality's Career Pathing Policy's (2006) potential for success. The international experience shows that career pathing is not a new phenomenon. Various organizations both in the public and private sector have embarked on career pathing projects, influenced by very similar issues experienced by the Msunduzi Municipality. The study further critiques the proposed implementation strategy of this policy. In so doing, it explores how the policy was created and assesses the likelihood of its failure or success in the light of the public policy theories, organizational context itself and the national government's legislative requirements on career pathing. The study established that the level of public participation was minimal during the policy making process; thus jeopardizing the final policy document and effective involvement of role players at the implementation stage of the policy. The study concluded that the implementation strategy of the Career Pathing Policy (2006) is weak in the light of the public policy theory, international experience and the organisational context. Indeed recommended polices need to be developed, resources allocated, interdepartmental relations strengthened and care taken that all the stakeholders understand and declare their support for the policy. Recommendations are offered as to the likelihood of the successful implementation of the Career Pathing Policy (2006) in the Msunduzi Municipality. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.

This paper analyses the gender earnings gap in Sweden at career entry, for individuals with comparable educational profile. There are many studies on this topic. Usually, researchers are focusing their attention on the evolution of this gap through individuals’ career. Our paper concentrates only on individual’s career entry, to exclude work experience as an explanatory factor. By studying six different educational fields we can have a precise image of the use of human ressources in the economy.An empirical analysis has been conducted using the method of OLS on a restricted data sample concerning graduates, having accomplished at least two years of university education. The result showed that, even at career entry, the raw gender earnings gap is of 20,2%. After controlling for fields of studies and occupations, the gap is reduced to 15,4%. This gap fluctuates among different fields of education, depending on the society’s perception of these fields. We distinguish male-dominated (i.e. Engineering and manufacturing), female-dominated (i.e. Teaching methods and teacher education) and gender-neutral (i.e. Social sciences, law, commerce and administration) educational fields. Our results depict some large gender earnings gap within male-dominated fields of study – women earn on average 20% less than their male counterparts when studying Engineering and manufacturing – and rather small ones within female-dominated and gender-neutral fields of study but due to statistical insignificance of the gender dummy coefficients we cannot make a conclusion concerning these fields.

The purposes of this thesis are two-fold-: 1) in light of the information which is now available, to record accurately the events of the long newspaper career of Samuel L. Clemens; and, 2) to attempt to assess the influence of his journalistic experiences on him as a man, as an observer of humanity, as a reporter fulfilling his assignments, as a developing artist, and as a future author of books.

This thesis evaluates the Skyline drama program. The first chapter presents an overview of the program; Chapters II and III describe the core and the advanced curriculum, respectively; and Chapter IV examines the first year of operation and evaluates the entire project.

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).

The problem of this study is to provide a descriptive analysis of research in career-oriented education and a plan of procedure to implement it in the Dallas Independent School District. The first part presents the inception of the career education program, the concept and components of career education, and the scope and goals of career education. The second part division discusses career education precursors and overviews of selected existing programs. The final portion of the study deals with implications of implementation of career education in the Dallas Independent School District.

What child does not want to do everything possible to please his or her parents? Many times children, regardless of age, find themselves struggling to decide what is right for them and what their parents feel is right for them. Parents are not always to blame for a child's unsatisfied feeling. Children often have a hard time articulating what they are feeling on the inside. I now find myself in the same conundrum with college students who have difficulty articulating what they want in life. With writing as my medium, this thesis will use the power of both Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) and Epistolary Scholarly Personal Narrative (eSPN) to explore my personal battle with articulating what I want for myself and the world around me. With creation of a personal definition of success as my end goal, I will explore and exemplify how SPN and eSPN writing can be used in one's life to reflect upon and articulate internal desires for how we want to live our lives. With my background in engineering and mathematics, I have found writing to be a release from the straightforward answers that I have been trained to search for. All types of people, engineers or not, can use the power of SPN and eSPN to dig deeper and find what exactly they want to do with their time. Finally, using narrative writing to help others write their stories will give both the reader and their respective audiences a medium through which to connect, i.e. SPN and/or eSPN writing.