No description available.

The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of professional development of principals of schools in the rural Appalachian region of Virginia. The researcher interviewed 13 principals from public elementary, middle, and high schools regarding their professional development experiences. Principals were asked to describe their past and current professional development experiences, identify barriers to accessing professional development, and provide their opinion regarding the importance of professional development that focuses specifically on leading a school in rural Appalachia. Principals reported participation in many different types of professional development. Principals' responses were analyzed to determine the extent to which professional development was on-going, job-embedded, and connected to school improvement goals. Results indicated principals' professional development experiences were seldom on-going, often job-embedded, and somewhat connected to school or district improvement goals. Principals reported the demands of the job, lack of professional development opportunities provided by their school district, lack of knowledge of professional development available outside their district, and being geographically isolated as barriers to their professional learning. The results led to identification of areas for further research. These areas include (a) the role and influence of school division leadership on principals' professional development (b) the importance and impact of incorporating networking and other opportunities for collaboration into the design of principals' professional development, (c) the impact of designing professional development that is on-going, job-embedded, and connected to school improvement goals on initial learning and continued leadership behaviors of principals, (d) the issues relating to the use and non-use of distance technologies for principals' professional development, and (e) the efficacy of professional development designed for teachers in meeting the needs of principals or the ability of principals to translate the content of teachers professional development to knowledge and skills needed by instructional leaders. The researcher also suggested the need for additional research to compare and contrast the professional development experiences of this study's participants with other principals in rural Appalachia as well as principals from suburban and urban school districts. / Ph. D.

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 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.

D.Phil.

The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of Career Information System (CIS) on high school students’ vocational skills self-efficacy, outcome expectations, work hope, career planning, career decision-making difficulties and postsecondary plans. CIS is an internet-based computer system of occupational and educational information designed to help users become more knowledgeable about the labor market and education system, as well as provide career planning support. Students from two high schools participated in the study. Participants at School A were first-year students who completed the Interest Profiler module of CIS. Participants at School B were first-year students who completed the Interest Profiler, IDEAS, SKILLS, Reality Check, and Work Importance Locator modules of CIS. First-year students who did not participate in the CIS intervention served as the control group in both schools. Participants in both schools who utilized the CIS intervention demonstrated a number of significant differences compared to control group participants at posttest. School A treatment participants' vocational outcome expectations and work hope were higher and career decision-making difficulties (i.e. inconsistent information and lack of information) were lower compared to control participants. School A treatment group participants were also more likely to indicate postsecondary educational plans of specialized training, 2-year community college, or 4-year college, instead of no education plans, compared to control group participants. School B treatment participants' vocational skills self-efficacy was significantly higher than control participants at posttest. Treatment group participants at both schools demonstrated more changes in their occupational interests compared to control group participants at posttest. The effects of CIS did not vary as a function of race/ethnicity or socioeconomic status in regards to any of the career outcome variables in either school. Implications for the use of CIS among first-year high school students will be discussed and suggestions for future research will be provided.

No description available.

College is a significant stage that heavily contributes to who and what citizens become after degree attainment. During career development, college students’ interests develop through taking part in coursework and employment based occupational exploration. It has been speculated that because sexual identity development and vocational identity development are active during the same phase of life, these processes might exert influence on each other (Chen, Stacuzzi, Ruckdeschel, 2004; Fassinger, 1996; Morrow, 1997). With the changing socioeconomic climate over the past decade, individuals of varying sexual orientation identities have found it necessary or desirable to be more open regarding their identity in their career. Currently, a lack of research exists that examines LGBQ+ students’ career development (Datti, 2009; Degges-White & Shoffner, 2002; Chung, 1995; Morrow, 1997; Schneider & Dimito, 2010). The purpose of this research study was to examine the career development of LGBQ+ students. Through a qualitative, phenomenological approach utilizing nine participants, the researcher examined how a LGBQ+ sexual orientation impacts a student’s career development. Four themes emerged from the study: the participant coming out process, awareness of intersectionality of identities, navigating their career as an LGBQ+ individual, identifying potential employers, and the role of career counselors. Recommendations are shared to further support LGBQ+ individuals in their career development. As a result of this study, leaders in post-secondary education as well as policymakers are able to gain insight into the career development of this population.

The aim of this study was to construct a theory for women's managerial career development that explained how women in health care services and health science faculties achieved senior management positions and developed their careers. It sought to discover the main barriers to career progress and achievement of senior level positions by women in health related organisations and to identify how women managers dealt with obstacles. In-depth interviews with 35 women managers in senior positions in 19 different organisations from three different cultural regions formed the major data source; observations, field notes, personal and operational journals, documents, and literature supplemented this data.This research was conducted in two phases. In phase one a descriptive approach was used to develop propositions about women managers and their careers. These propositions formed the guidelines for phase two. The second phase used grounded theory methods, incorporating feminist and interpretative perspectives to identify the previously inarticulated core problem shared by participants. The barriers that women encountered were the contradictory, inconsistent and incompatible assumptions about their potential to have long term careers and ability to move into senior level management positions.These assumptions had been received during their life and educational experiences, as well as from their organisations. The gendered context of health care organisations and university educational institutions contributed to the limited career aspirations and career progress of women with health professional qualifications. By applying grounded theory strategies for analysis of the data, it was discovered that the women managers dealt with this problem through a core process, labelled metamorphosis, a four stage process for overcoming assumptions. This core variable was the way these women ++ / managers moved from managing without confidence to managing with confidence and assurance.This process occurred over time having four stages, each involving different activities and strategies. The progressive spiral stages were: being in a quandary (struggling with incompatible and contradictory assumptions); observing, examining and reflecting (on the impact of internal and external assumptions on their behaviour in organisational contexts, then realising that opportunities existed); learning and reframing (the managerial skills in order to re-frame their assumptions about the traditional characteristics of a manager); and finally change and transformation into being confident managers, so developing women's presence in management.The findings generated a theory which proposed a managerial career development model for enabling women to manage with confidence and assurance. The outcome was a theoretical model which recognised the dynamic interaction between contexts (professional, organisational, political, economic, cultural, and research); a picture of women managers (personal beliefs, skills, characteristics, attributes of life long learning, relationship between life and career roles, and ways of changing contexts); and the inner energy force creating women's presence in health related organisations (core process and power of their metamorphosis).Contributing to the development of this theory of metamorphosis was the recognition that being and doing research with women involved valuing the personal learning process. This thread has been integrated into the research fabric to strengthen the reflective and personal experiences of research. Using and valuing women's stories enabled their voices and visibility to be taken out of the shadows and demonstrated that they can be pioneers in their own lives. The sense of collaboration in research, education, and community ++ / healing will gain from encouraging women to aspire to leadership and management positions.

This study is an interpretive investigation of the life-career histories of 53 women in engineering; and a case study of one woman's account of present-lived career and her quest for identity in engineering over an eight year period (1992-1999). This study had two broad aims. First, it aimed to give voice to women's stories derived from their own reflective accounts, and to compare and contrast their perspectives with feminist writers' reviews of non-traditional girls' and women's career experiences, and with the organisational career story of itself. Second, it aimed to evaluate the adequacy of my convergence of a socialist feminist "unified systems" theory of social relations (Jaggar, 1983, 1989; Jaggar & Rothenberg, 1984, 1993) with Super's segmental life-span, lifespace theory (Super, 1980, 1990, 1994) to explain women's career and personality development. Further to this theoretical convergence, I elaborated on Super's original models and evaluated their usefulness for my gender analysis of career from four perspectives. I conceptualised "career" as both "subjective" and "organisational" (Dale, 1972; Hughes, 1937) and, using Benhabib's (1986b) terminology, created four perspectives by further differentiating career into either "generalised other" or "concrete other" (see Figure 1.1). Drawing on the findings of my exploration of the women's careers, I extended the range of Jaggar's/Super's explanatory theories of career and personality development (Figure 2.2) in an elaboration of Supers archway model (Figure 8.1). I found that my combined Jaggar/Super career archway and spider web model (Figure 2.3) represented the life-space tensions in each individual woman's career decision-making in engineering. / The life-career rainbow was a valuable subsidiary model (Figure 2.4) in highlighting the complexities of gender as an overarching socio-cultural factor for theoretical and conceptual analyses of career and its effect on salient role relationships and personality development at each life-stage. My convergence career ladder represented the organisational career statuses and the successive development of the subjective career and identity through the completion of developmental tasks (Figure 2.6). My case study Cecilia, in common with other participants, I found to be an accomplished "feminine ambivalent" (Douvan & Adelson, 1966) and "paver of the way" (Josselson, 1987), yet she (like several others) floundered in the milieux of engineering. Her story indicates the continued need for engineering educators: to acknowledge the significance of women's subjective constructs of career to effect transformative change by promoting equity and excellence; to recognise ways in which the subjective and the organisational constructs of career can complement one another; and to implement changes which facilitate such complementarity. This study fills a space in the research literature on non-traditional girls' and women's career development. It also has potential to assist those who wish to gain a better understanding of the career pathways of women in engineering.