Infusing Career Development to Strengthen Middle School English Language Arts Curricula

Abstract

An approach is presented for strengthening middle school standards-based English language arts (ELA) classroom instruction by infusing theory-and researchsupported career development constructs and practices. Over an 8-week period, 90 urban 7th graders participated in an integrated ELA-career development curriculum. Career agency emerged as an important construct for students. It was related to key markers of ELA achievement (i.e., standardized test scores, grades, and positive change in 6th-to 7th-grade test scores) and elaborated on in nuanced ways by students in their written narratives. Four themes related to career agency were identified in student writings: time perspective, challenges of self-direction, career development, and social and emotional development. Advantages for students and schools related to synergy, scale, and sustainability are discussed.

Predicting Community Adoption of Collective Impact in the United States: A National Scan

“…This measure has the advantage of being standardized across states so that we could accurately compare scores of middle school students from across the country. Middle school English Language Arts scores are regularly used as indicators of student career- and college-readiness (Lapan et al, 2016), and for creating curriculum interventions to improve communication and learning skills (Mims et al, 2012). The test-score measure is a baseline indicator of differences in learning outcomes across counties that might not otherwise be captured by the basic sociodemographic data from the census.…”

“Science of the singular”: an explanatory single case study of whole school guidance counselling in Ireland

“…Despite the growing arguments for a pedagogical approach to career learning and development in schools the process of infusing guidance themes into an academic curriculum while simultaneously addressing the individual social and personal development needs of students is multifaceted (Barnes et al 2011; Lam and Hui 2010;Lapan et al 2016;Watkins 1994). Although the school management and guidance counsellor in the case school articulated a mutual understanding of the integrated model of guidance counselling (personal and social, educational and career), this did not necessarily correlate with the perceptions of some of the other stakeholders involved.…”

“…The issue of accessing schools to do an in-depth case study of whole school guidance counselling proved extremely difficult with numerous attempts at sampling in different geographical regions taking much longer than expected until the case school volunteered to be involved. This highlights the complexities of conducting research within the real-world constraints of a demanding school setting (Lapan, Marcotte, Storey, Carbone, Loehr-Lapan, Guerin, Thomas, Cuffee-Grey, Coburn, Pfeiffer, Wilson & Mahoney, 2016) Moreover, due to time constraints, other relevant stakeholders as referenced in policy (DES 2005;NCGE 2004) who have some level of involvement in whole school guidance provision were not included, i.e. Board of Management (BOM), the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) and Child and Mental Health Services (CAMHS).…”

Exploring Perceptions of the Path to Work/Life Success Among Middle School Students of Color

“…Most studies involving career development activities have focused on high school and postsecondary students, and while these studies provide an understanding of how students matriculate through high school and postsecondary settings (Gushue, Clarke, Pantzer, & Scanlan, 2006; Gushue, Scanlan, Pantzer, & Clarke, 2006; Paa & McWhirter, 2000), multiple authors have suggested that career development and career exploration should begin as early as middle school (Storlie, Chan, & Vess, in press; Fouad & Smith, 1996; Gibson, 2005; Lapan et al, 2016; Navarro, Flores, & Worthington, 2007). Middle school is often viewed as a time in which adolescents begin to explore which courses to complete in high school, which extracurricular activities to join, and whether to persist through high school and beyond (Fouad & Smith, 1996; Navarro et al, 2007), all of which impact future career outcomes.…”