The Transition From School to Work: A Developmental Perspective

✍ Scribed by Mark L. Savickas

• Publisher: American Counseling Association
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 748 KB
• Volume: 47
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0889-4019
• DOI: 10.1002/j.2161-0045.1999.tb00741.x

✦ Synopsis

Career development theory provides a comprehensive model for conceptualizing the school-to-work transition. Since the 1920s, this model has guided the design of a plethora of career education methods and materials that orient, teach, coach, and rehearse students for the transition from school to work. The developmental model, methods, and materials aim to increase students' awareness of the choices to be made and the information and planning that bears on these choices.

The editors of this special issue asked the authors to focus on "explicitly applying their theories to the school-to-work transition of work-bound youth" and to "emphasize ways that their respective theoretical positions can be used to help understand or facilitate the School-to-Work (STW) transition of youth. " This is an amiable assignment for advocates of career development theory because this evolutionary perspective on careers explicitly concentrates on the developmental tasks and individual coping resources required to successfully negotiate the transition to work life. The transition of youth from school to work looms large in the landscape of predictable passages in a career because it marks the beginning of full-time employment. This article first discusses the developmental model for understanding the STW transition and then describes methods and materials for facilitating the STW transition.

UNDERSTANDING THE STW TRANSITION

The years after a student leaves school are years of choice and change. The choices may be explicit or implicit, made by action or inaction, but either way young adults make important career choices that change their lives. Numerous studies over the last 60 years have examined the experiences of youth in making the STW transition. These studies agree on one major conclusion, the essence of the developmental perspective on the STW transition: Youth cope better with