Applying Theories of Person-Environment Fit to the Transition From School to Work

✍ Scribed by Jane L. Swanson; Nadya A. Fouad

• Publisher: American Counseling Association
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 765 KB
• Volume: 47
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0889-4019
• DOI: 10.1002/j.2161-0045.1999.tb00742.x

✦ Synopsis

The school-to-work movement represents a large-scale effort to improve the way that adolescents prepare to enter the world of work. The potential impact of the school-to-work movement is staggering, given that it could "directly affect the vocational outcomes of potentially 75% or more of youth" in the United States (Worthington & Juntunen, 1997, p. 323). Unfortunately, this impact may be either positive or negative, depending on the comprehensiveness and quality of programs that address school-to-work issues. Herr and Niles (1997) warn, for example, that the school-to-work transition "may be a process of floundering, trial and error, lingering unemployment, and general despair that carries into young adulthood and beyond" (p. 149).

Theories of vocational behavior and career development have had little impact on how school-to-work programs are designed or implemented, in spite of what seem like obvious connections between such theories and programs. Worthington and Juntunen (1997) provide a cogent overview of the potential connection between vocational psychology and the school-to-work movement. They note that interdisciplinary forces influence the school-to-work movement, which sug-