Introduction

Young people today are facing a complex and rapidly changing society. A review of the literature reveals that despite a great deal of effort being put forth by schools and government agencies, an increasingly large proportion of Canadian youth have and will continue to experience difficulty in making the transition from the world of school to the world of work.

Over the last few decades significant economic, social, political, and technological changes have made it difficult for young people to adapt to the numerous employment trends. These trends include:

• the shift from the production/ manufacturing sector to the service sector;
• the increase in computer technology;
• the increase in part time, temporary and seasonal positions;
• the increase in the number of women, minorities, and persons with disabilities in the work force;
• the increase in unemployment and in low-paying positions;
• the increase in the number of job changes that one can expect during a lifetime.

Young people must be prepared to cope with these changing trends by having the capacity to be resourceful, adaptable and flexible amidst change and ambiguity. It is in this context of constant change that adolescents must make decisions regarding their life careers. Cooperative efforts of the school, home and community are needed to help young people successfully make the transition from school to the world of work.

Career development is a life long process. It is the total constellation of psychological, sociological, educational, physical, economical and choice factors that combine to shape a young person's life. In order to help guide young people in their career paths, career education should be seen as a central theme in all schools.

A comprehensive career education program in all schools is an important strategy for assisting youth with school to work transition. It has received wide spread support throughout many jurisdictions in Canada and the United States. Effective career development intervention must begin early in primary grades and continue intoadult years. Efforts to intervene in the life career process can accelerate or strengthen the acquisition of knowledge, attitudes and skills about self and the world of work.

Philosophy and Rationale

The Middle Level Career Guidance Curriculum is based on the belief that all students, including those with challenging needs, have the right to benefit from effective instruction to ensure optimal development. Although the abilities of students will vary, there should be an expectation for participation, partially or independently, in activities at home, in the school, in the community, and at work. The main purpose of the Middle Level Career Guidance Program should be to empower all students to reach their fullest potential.

Studies of guidance and counselling programs across Canada, reports by the business community, and feedback from parents have raised concerns that many young people do not have the necessary knowledge, skills, and attitudes to make a successful transition from school to the world of work. Career planning is not instinctive. Young people must be provided with information and taught basic knowledge, skills and attitudes to facilitate a smooth journey from adolescence to adulthood. Life career development is self-development over the life span. It occurs through the integration of the roles, settings and events in a person's life (see Figure 1: Life Career Development Model). The word life in life career means that the focus is on the total person -- the human career. The word career identifies and relates the roles in which individuals are involved, such as (worker, learner, family member, citizen), the settings where individuals find themselves (home, school, community, workplace), and the events that occur over their lifetimes (entry job, parenthood, job change, retirement). Finally, the word development is used to indicate that individuals are always in the process of becoming.

According to the concept of life career development, it is practically unthinkable to prepare young people for their life of work without occupational exploration. This is accomplished through the student's school subjects and extra curricular activities with the help of parents, teachers, friends and representatives of the world of work and the community. This way of proceeding not onlyallows the students to explore who they are but to explore their surroundings. Thus the students can be exposed to a whole range of occupational opportunities, establish a relation between their personal characteristics and those of occupations, and acquire more information about the knowledge, skills and values required in the world of work.

The life career development of young people should be a process of planned intervention whereby educators, parents, government agenciesand community members work together to provide students with hope for the future and to empower them to believe in themselves. Young people need help to keep their eyes open for opportunities in the world that will allow them to fulfil their values, beliefs and interests and to reach their fullest potential. Saskatchewan Education, Training and Employment has developed the Middle Level Career Guidance Curriculum to specifically address the life career development needs of its students at this educational level.

Figure 1: Life Career Development Model

Aim and Goals of Middle Level Career Guidance

Aim

The aim of Middle Level Career Guidance is to empower students to acquire the knowledge, skills, information, and attitudes to understand and positively enhance their own life career development.

Goals

The goals of Middle Level Career Guidance are to assist students to:

• acquire increased Self-Awareness
• develop Life Career Management Skills
• increase their understanding and skills in Educational Planning
• increase their knowledge, understanding and skills in the area of Career Awareness, Exploration, and Planning

These goals are based on the Directions philosophy for Saskatchewan (see Figure 2: Middle Level Career Guidance Goals). They build upon the introductory work that has occurred at the kindergarten and Elementary Level (grades 1 to 5) where students are introduced to career development at the awareness level. In these grades students are developing a self-identity and a sense of self-worth and confidence. They are learning to relate to peers, adults, and family members and to take responsibility for themselves. They are beginning to develop a sense of belonging and a growing awareness of how they can contribute to the complex and changing society around them. At the Middle Level (grades 6-9), the Career Guidance Curriculum seeks to assist the developing adolescent to move from seeking and meeting adult expectations to that of seeking and meeting their own expectations through friendships and interactions with their peer group.

The specific characteristics of the Middle Level student (described in the following section ) require a learning environment that is participative and action oriented. The curriculum promotes exploration of various educational and occupational interests and encourages students in the expression of their developing selves. The curriculum is notintended to force students to make premature choices, rather it aims at helping students to expand their occupational awareness and to relate their educational choices and achievements to future requirements of school and the work world. It prepares students for their transition into high school and for developing educational plans to ensure their academic growth and continuing career development.

To achieve the goals of the curriculum, foundational objectives have been developed which encompass broad areas of career development. In these areas, students attain competencies (specific knowledge, skills and abilities) needed to prepare for satisfying and productive careers. The objectives are consistent with the developmental capabilities of students in the middle years. A complete listing of the foundational and learning objectives of the curriculum is given on pages 5-8.

The curriculum is activity based. For each of the four grade levels, detailed activities have been developed for use by classroom teachers. The activities are organized into four modules, each module reflecting one of the curriculum goals. These activities are not intended to be prescriptive. There are many ways for students to learn career development knowledge, attitudes and skills and teachers are encouraged to discover and develop alternative approaches.

Figure 2: Middle Level Guidance Goals

Middle Level Career Guidance

Foundational and Learning Objectives

Foundational Objective 1:

Awareness and understanding of the Life Career concept

Learning objectives:

1. Develop and share a personal life career diagram/model/timeline.
2. Define life career, abilities, interests.
3. Describe the various roles individuals may have as part of their life career.
4. Describe individual skills required to fulfil different life career roles.
5. Describe work-related activities in the home, community and schools.
6. Describe how family members depend on one another, work together, and share responsibilities.
7. Identify life events that have been meaningful.
8. Identify and understand the feelings that accompany important events.
9. Identify occupational directions as they relate to life career goals.

Foundational Objective 2:

Awareness of self and knowledge of the value of a positive self-concept

Learning Objectives:

1. Develop an awareness of each person's uniqueness.
2. Describe positive characteristics about self and others.
3. Describe how positive characteristics are beneficial in school and work.
4. Identify five sources of information about yourself.
5. Identify personal qualities and events that have influenced your self-concept.
6. Identify personal interests, abilities, strengths and weaknesses and how they relate to careers.
7. Understand the meaning of interests and leisure and their relationship.
8. Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between personality and occupational goals.
9. Describe positive contributions people make to society.
10. Understand the meaning and importance of values.
11. Explore personal value systems and how they relate to school and occupation goals.
12. Demonstrate a positive attitude about self.
13. Describe how one's behaviour influences the feelings and actions of others.
14. Describe ways to improve self-concept.

Foundational Objective 3:

Awareness of the value of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to interact successfully with others

Learning Objectives:

1. Recognize differences in the way people see the abilities of others.
2. Identify and state characteristics of other class members.
3. Demonstrate an appreciation for the similarities and differences among people.
4. Demonstrate effective group membership skills.
5. Demonstrate respect for the feelings and beliefs of others.
6. Demonstrate healthy ways of dealing with conflicts, stress and emotions in self and others.

Foundational Objective 1:

Awareness of decision making and knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to set goals and to make appropriate decisions

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand the importance of decision-making skills.
2. Demonstrate setting goals and developing action plans.
3. Identify how personal beliefs, values and attitudes affect decision-making.
4. Describe factors that affect choices.
5. Identify and assess problems that interfere with attaining goals.
6. Identify problem-solving and decision-making techniques.
7. Identify ways in which decisions about education and work relate to other major life decisions.
8. Identify environmental influences in the development of attitudes, behaviours, and aptitudes.
9. Describe the importance of career, family and leisure activities to mental, emotional, physical, and economic well-being
10. Identify possible outcomes of decisions.
11. Learn to ask general questions concerning a problem.

Foundational Objective 2:

Awareness of change and knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to cope with Life Transitions

Learning Objectives:

1. Examine values and how they change throughout life.
2. Identify how people change during a lifetime (physical, psychological, social, emotional).
3. Describe the effects that societal, economic, and technological change have on occupations.
4. Identify feelings associated with change in one's life.
5. Understand the concept of transferable skills.
6. Develop skills for learning from work experience.
7. Learn to persist in goal adherence.
8. Develop strategies to reduce stress.
9. Learn job adaptation skills.

Foundational Objective 3:

Knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to establish good work and study habits

Learning Objectives:

1. Define basic student skills.
2. Identify ways to acquire effective student skills.
3. Understand how effective student skills can lead to effective work habits.
4. Evaluate work habits.
5. Describe a plan of action for increasing basic educational skills.
6. Describe the relationship of personal attitudes, beliefs, abilities, and skills to occupations.
7. Demonstrate personal qualities that are needed to get and keep jobs.

Foundational Objective 1:

Awareness and knowledge of educational benefits

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify skills learned in school which may be implemented in occupations.
2. Describe the skills needed to adjust to changing occupational requirements.
3. Describe school tasks that are similar to skills essential for job success.
4. Identify personal strengths and weaknesses in subject areas.
5. Identify different types of educational preparation required for different occupations.
6. Understand the relationship between motivation and successful learning.
7. Describe success and how it is achieved.
8. Observe how work can satisfy personal needs.

Foundational Objective 2:

Awareness and understanding of the relationship between work and learning

Learning Objectives:

1. Examine reasons for the importance of work.
2. Describe ways in which schools relate to the world of work.
3. Describe how one's role as a student is like that of an adult worker.
4. Identify academic skills needed in several occupations.
5. Demonstrate an understanding of the importance of personal skills and attitudes to job success.
6. Define ways in which social and personal relationships affect employment.
7. Identify skills and traits that employers expect in the world of work.
8. Identify skills and traits that are transferable from school to the world of work.

Foundational Objective 3:

Knowledge and skills to prepare for the transition to secondary school

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify the various educational alternatives available at the secondary and postsecondary level.
2. Identify the requirements for secondary and postsecondary programs.
3. Understand how educational planning will affect career planning.

Foundational Objective 1:

Awareness and knowledge of the interrelationship of life roles

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify personal goals that may be satisfied through a combination of work, community, social and family roles.
2. Describe the interrelationship between school, family, occupational and leisure decisions.
3. Identify personal leisure choices in relation to lifestyle and the attainment of future goals.

Foundational Objective 2:

Awareness and understanding of the career planning process

Learning Objectives:

1. Describe the importance of career planning.
2. Describe how career development is a continuous process with a series of choices.
3. Identify strategies for managing personal resources (talent, time, money) to achieve tentative career goals.
4. Describe how the expectations of others affect career planning.
5. Identify school courses that meet tentative life career goals.
6. Identify factors that are important to consider when choosing an occupational direction.
7. Develop an individual career plan which integrates educational plans with tentative career goals.

Foundational Objective 3:

Awareness and knowledge of occupations and the skills needed to access, understand and use career information

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify a variety of occupations.
2. Identify various ways that occupations can be classified.
3. Demonstrate skills in using school and community resources to learn about occupations/occupational groups.
4. Identify sources to obtain information about occupations/occupational groups, including self-employment.
5. Identify the physical activities associated with various occupations.
6. Describe skills needed in a variety of occupational groups.

Foundational Objective 4:

Awareness and knowledge about changing gender roles

Learning Objectives:

1. Describe advantages and problems of entering non-traditional occupations.
2. Describe the changing life roles of men and women in work and family.
3. Describe stereotypes and biases that limit opportunities for men and women to pursue certain occupations.
4. Describe how sex-role stereotypes influence behaviour and reactions to life role situations.

Unique Needs of Middle Level Students

Based on contemporary research findings, middle level students are known to be experiencing unique intellectual, physical, social, emotional and moral development. Teachers at the Middle Level must be knowledgeable and must recognize typical behaviours and special needs of these young people. The philosophy, activities and outcomes of the Career Guidance Curriculum have been developed to reflect the unique developmental needs of Middle Level students. In this context educators need to:

• acknowledge adolescents' rapid physical change;
• encourage their need for constructive social interaction;
• help build their confidence and skills;
• allow for physical activity;
• encourage cooperation and motivation, rather than competition and enforce activities;
• provide programs that are adaptable to the wide range of students' sizes, weights strength, endurance and skill levels;
• facilitate the growing independence and self-assertion early adolescents are experiencing;
• incorporate leadership and decision-making skills, self-reliance, independence and responsibility into the total school program;
• enhance the development of problem-solving skills;
• incorporate combinations of concrete and abstract knowledge, as well as, written and verbal skills;
• encourage creative expression;
• introduce students to real-life applications and as much as possible use real people as examples;
• facilitate the students' growing logical and investigative abilities;
• work with students' innate imaginative and inquisitive nature;
• promote the development of personal values;
• facilitate play and role-playing activities to make learning interactive, personalized and relevant;
• provide opportunities for individual and small group work;
• encourage discussion, questioning and evaluative abilities;
• be sensitive and inclusive of gender, culture, and family factors that are part of students' learning at the early adolescent stage;
• enhance the development of moral reasoning; and,
• provide a learning environment that encourages participation.

Career Development Needs of Middle Level Students

The essence of career development in the middle years demands different emphasis within an evolving consciousness of self-characteristics and of the life options to which these characteristics relate. Career development must be responsive to the developmental tasks that emerge as students grow. If career guidance is to be a developmental process, the program must be continual and cumulative. The outcomes obtained by students at the Middle Level must serve as the foundation for career development at the Secondary Level.

Researchers indicate that in most Middle Level models, career guidance emphasizes self, occupational exploration and life career planning. Acquiring knowledge and skills important to exploration and planning comes from providing students with opportunities to engage in activities further from home and independent of the family.

The Middle Level classroom is a transition period between education at the Elementary Level and specialized education at the Secondary Level. Factors such as present-future relationships, values, delayed gratification, personal responsibility, and choice consequences have real implications for students during this period. How attitudes, knowledge, and skills about self and the world of work are acquired has implications beyond immediate adjustment at the Middle Level. Such development is also predictive of success and satisfaction in the Secondary Level and beyond.

In planning this Career Guidance Program the following career development needs of Middle Level students were taken into consideration
(Herr and Cramer, 1988, p. 254):

• Since Middle Level students are in a transitional stage from the structure and education of the elementary school to the less structured but more specialized education of the secondary school, students must be provided with a broad range of opportunities to explore their personal characteristics, aswell as, those of educational options from which they may choose. Opportunities to relate curricular options to the possible and subsequent educational and occupational outcomes seem highly desirable.
• Since wide ranges in career maturity, interests, values and abilities characterize Middle Level students, a wide variety of methods are needed to accommodate the range of individual differences.
• Although students in the Middle Level are capable of verbal and abstract behaviour, career exploration will be enhanced if they are given concrete, hands on, direct experiences as well.
• Fundamental to the rapid changes that Middle Level students are experiencing, is a search for personal identity. Therefore, career guidance programs must encourage students to explore their feelings, needs, and uncertainties as a base for evaluating educational and occupational options. Values and belief clarifications and other similar processes are helpful in this regard.

Systemic Barriers in Career Development

Studies in Canada have shown that many members of ethnic groups are not equally distributed through the occupational categories of the society. Certain racial and ethnic groups are highly represented in particular occupational categories and virtually absent in others. For instance, data from Statistics Canada (1986) indicates that Aboriginal and other racial minorities are under represented in management and administration, as well as, in the skilled crafts and trades, and racial minorities tend to be over represented in technical and clerical jobs. Furthermore, among the lesser skilled occupations different minority groups tend to be concentrated in particular occupational groups.

Data from Employment and Immigration Canada (1989) based on the 1986 Canadian Census also revealed the following employment inequities:

• Participation of Aboriginal youth in the workforce in 1986 was 52.8%, significantly low compared to all youth (67.8%) in the Canadian Labour Market.
• Participation rate of racial minority youth in the workforce was 61%, lower than that of the total youth population in Canada (67.85).
• The unemployment rate among Aboriginal people as a whole was 22.7%, more than double the national average.
• The unemployment rate among racial minorities as a whole was 10.8%, slightly higher than the total population (10.3%).
• Aboriginal persons on the average earn 76.3% of the average Canadian earnings per year. Aboriginal men remained some $4000 behind the national average in men's earnings, and Aboriginal women remained $1500 below the national average in women's earnings, and $8000 behind aboriginal men.

Educational and employment systems can work not only to not promote equity, but also to place barriers in the way of those who differ from the dominant group. Schools must use their influence to make an impact and to create equity for all young people.

Identity is inseparable from the specific culture that shapes it. In working with students, it is important to consider the social context in which Middle Level students live and interact, paying attention to the meaning and value that society gives to these identities. Unfortunately, some geographic regions, economic classes, and races are more favoured by society than others. In order to address the specific needs of students, teachers must recognize these social inequalities and be aware of issues pertinent to students' cultural backgrounds. It is important to:

• support students in treating all persons with respect.
• be informed about the process of acculturation.
• acknowledge students' cultural backgrounds, values, and belief systems.
• create a bond with the students.
• accept each student unconditionally.

It is imperative that teachers also recognize the cross-cultural differences in non-verbal communication, such as:

• preference regarding distance between two people engaged in conversation.
• meaning of touch.
• meaning of smell.
• meaning of gazing at or away from the speaker.
• cultural definitions of time.
• other communication conventions, such as the use of pauses and tone of voices.

In order to support the life career development of all students regardless of cultural or socio-economic background or disability, Middle Level Career Guidance teachers can:

• recognize, support and stimulate the self-formation of the individual.
• examine personal life knowledge, skills, and attitudes in the world of work, reflecting on strengths and competencies and their relevance for various occupations.
• experiment with occupational simulations and role playing.
• model decision-making and problem-solving skills.
• promote fundamental moral values stemming from a respect for persons.
• become sensitive to cultural variations in personal style, values, manners, verbal and non-verbal behaviours, emotional behaviour and learning style.
• recognize that barriers exist with respect to attainment of career goals for minorities and that the occupational aspirations must be adequately explored.

Above all, teachers need to begin by examining their own cultural, racial and ethnic identities and being aware of how these impact on the students' perception of them and the Middle Level classroom environment. Ethnocentrism, prejudice, racism, and discrimination are all necessary issues to be taken into consideration when teaching students.

Each ethnic and racial group has its own history, its own achieved position within Canadian society. These form the backdrop for the young person's own career possibilities. Due to historical and contemporary forms of oppression and discrimination, countervailing measures must be taken into consideration in the delivery of the Middle Level Career Guidance Program.