Eu DOCUMENT RESUME ED 106 516 95 CE 003 684 AUTHOR Brickell, Henry M.; And Others TITLE Taxonomy and Profiles of Career Education. Volumes 1-4. INSTITUTION PoliCy Studies in Education, New York, N.Y. SPONS AGENCY Office of Career Education (DHEW/OE), Washington, D.C. PUB DATE Sep 74 CONTRACT OEC-0-1821 NOTE 756p. EDRS PRICE 4110-$ 1.23 HC-$38.72 PLUS POSTAGE DESCRIPTORS *Career Education; Classification; Data Analysis; Data Collection; Educational Development; Educational Programs; Elementary Secondary Education; I erviews; *National Surveys; Program Content; *Program Descriptions; Projects; Questionnaires; *State Program Statistical Analysis; Tables (Data); *Taxonomy; Typology; Vocational Education ABSTRACT , The taxonomy is designed to characterize, summarize, and generalize about the career education movement. It describes career education projects by the following paradigm: topics, dimensions," measures, and descriptors. (The four topics are: .school district, career education project, Ohreer education instrutional program, and evaluation of career education project.) Volume 1 provides an 11-page working outline of the taxonomy developed by an analysis of 72 representative elementary and secondary career education projects throughout the United States. It also contains 68 easily-readable charts which analyze to the nearest 10 petcent the data of the 72 projects in'a form corresponding to the taxonomies outline. Volume 1also contains an excerpt from'the U. S. Office of Education publication, Career Education: Programs and Pro s, and 60 pages of sample career-education project director's intilerview rms. volumes 2, 3, and 4 contain unevenlydetailed, alphabetically listed, profiles of over 200 career edificationprojects in the 50 States, which follow this form: district aixa project information, approach to career education, project staff, school staff, training, community resourcet, curriculum materials,, and ideas that worked. Volume 2 contains profiles for Alabama--Iowa; Volume 3 for Kansas - -New. Mexico; Volume 4 for New York--Wyocing. (JR) TAXONOMY AND PROFILES 0 F CAREER EDUCATION VOLUME I Prepared fdr the OFFICE OF CAREER EDUCATION UNITED STATES OFFICE OF EDUCATION POLICY STUDIES IN EDUCATION A Department of the EducationalResearch Council of America 52 Vanderbilt Avenue New York, New York 10017 12-684-694D U S DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. EDUCATION &WELFARE 4 'NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION Henry M. Brickell THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO OUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM Carol B. Aslanian ° THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN ATING IT POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS Rena Grossman STATED 00 NOT NECESSARILY REPRE SENT OFFICIAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF Laurel J. Spak EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY Mary Callaway Katharine S. Smith SEPTEMBER 1974 110 The work presented and reported herein wasperformed pursuant to contract OEC-0-1821with the Office of ()Education, United States Department ofHealth, Education; and Welfare. However, the bpinions expressedherein do k, not necessarily reflect theposition or policy of the Office of Education, and no officialendorsement by the 0 Office of Education should be inferred. If ti DISCRIMINATION PROHIBITED.--4o person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any' program or activity receiving Federal finan- cial assistance, or be so treatedon the basis of sex under most education programs or activities receiving Federal assistance. Therefore, every program or activity receiv- ing financial assistance from the U.S. Dep- artment of Health, Education, and Welfare, must be operated in compliance with this law. I 1 314 INTRODUCTION In the Summer of 1974, Kenneth B. Hoyt, Associate Commissioner, USOE Office of Career Education, sponsored and presided at 20 Career Education Mini-Conferences in Washington, D.C. Over 250 project directors.and classroom teachers representing over 250 career edu- cation projects for elementary and secondary students took part. The participants were updated on USOE policy in career education, described what they were doing at home, exchanged information with each other, and contributed locally-made materials to the USOE Career" Education Library. Policy Studies in Education, a department of the not-for-profit Educational Research Council of America, was commissioned to attend the conferences, interview. the participants, develop profiles of their projects, analyze the status of career education nationwide, and prepare a taxonomy to map the past and help guide the future of USOE funding, policy in'career education. Policy Studies in Education developed a series of four volumes, of which the present volume is one: I. TAXONOMY OF CAREER EDUCATION --A general description of the national movement as revealed by a representative sample of the profiles. This volume highlights features found in many projects and identifies significant patterns ofactivity. II. PROFILES OF CAREER EDUCATION --Alabama Iowa III. PhOFILES OF CAREER EDUCATION - -Kansas - New Mexico IV. PROFILES OF CAREER EDUCATION - -New York -.Wyoming The TAXONOMY is designed to characterize, sunmarize, and generalize about the career education movement after a halfdecade of energetic activity. USOE has purposely left a great deal to local imagination and local initiative.The TAXONOMY contains the harvest of the major ideas and activities that constitute the practice of career education in elementary and secondary schools today. The PROFILES are designed to tell enough about each project to let the reader know whether he should write to thelocal project director for more information. There is of course much more to the projects than can be told in the fewpages devoted to each of them. All profiles have a common statistical sectionalthough in some cases local personnel did not supply the requested information. The profiles differ.in ne-,rative treatment dependingupon whether the profiles were written by the staff of Policy Studiesintducation (about one-third of the descriptions)or by local project personnel (about two-thirds of the descriptions)'. Some school districts have more than one project and thus are represented bymore than one project description. The profiles have never been reviewed by localproject personnel. They were rushed into print justas soon as they were completed in the hope.tt they would be immediatelyuseful, saving the weeks or . months of delay that local editing and approval wouldhave required. Apologies are due to local projects whichhave been in any way mis- represented in these descriptions. Taken together, these four volumes contain themost definitive description of career education available. a TABLE OF CONTENTS OVERVIEW 1 Section I: TAXONOMY -- Topics, Dimensions, Measures and Descriptors in the classification outline 9 Section II: PATTERNS OF ACTIVITY -- Applying the Taxonomy 'to a Representative Sample of Career Education Projects 21 , APPENDIX A: Excerpt from Career Education: Programs & Progress A-1 APPENDIX B: Career.Education Project Director's Interview Guides B-1 7 OVERVIEW A taxonomy is a classification system for bringing order tp phenomena which might otherwise be difficult to comprehend.A.good taxonomy arranges information so that major patterns becomeclearly visible and--when accompanied by an understanding of the dynamics of evolution, growth, and change--can be servicable in explaining why those patterns occur. Career education is a major national movement touching schools and communities in every state* Much discussed, it has yet to be well described. If a satisfactory taxonomy could be developed for des- cribing and classifying the kinds of activities now taking place in the name of career education, the movement could be better analyzed and more fully understood. Potential Uses Of A Taxonomy For Career Education There are five possible uses-for a carefully-developed, systematic- ally-tested taxonomy of career education: a 1. It could u22...EmdsetoiLclessulastat so that local projects could be analyzed, described, compared, contrasted, and summarized. At present, there are few widely-accepted definitions, of the major concepts which underlie the move- ment. This presents some difficulties in studying and discussing what is happening. 2. Given sufficient detailed information about a representative cross-section of career education projects, a good taxonomy : could be used to map the movement to:date. Such a map would have the advantage of revealing which pathways are'being explored and which are not, how much overlap and how much differentiation there is among projects, whether certain regions of the country and certain groups of students were being better served than others, and so on. "Appendix A contains an excellent brief review of the movementwritten by the staff of the USOE Office of Career Education. 1 3. The taxonomy could be usedto generate a systematic set of program ideas. That is, time could be deliberatelyput into thinking up new programs in areas wherelittle is now happen- ing or alternativeprograms for areas in which a great deal is now happening but might lackvariety and imagination. 4. Because the taxonomy could beused to generate a get of distinctive choices, it might also beused to help frame the debate about what choices shouldbe'made. Certainly it would offer clear'evidenceas to the kinds of activities which schools find popular and feasible. The debate, of course, need not be resolved in favor of widely-usedactivities. 5.