Michigan State University Extension
Diversity and Pluralism - 02180058
12/95/
ERIC TITLE NUMBER: ED215141 AUTHOR: Veres, Helen C.; Carmichael, Mary Margaret
TITLE: Changing Adolescents' Attitudes Toward Nontraditional
Career Choices: An Intervention Process.
YEAR PUBLISHED: 1982
NOTE: 15 p.; Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the
American Educational Research Association (New York, NY,
March 23, 1982).
ABSTRACT: An intervention project was conducted to determine
if affirmative action strategies had an effect on promoting
nontraditional program and course selection among 460 eighth
and tenth grade students from urban, suburban, and rural
communities in New York. The groups, about half male and
half female, were divided into a control group and an
experimental group. Both groups took pre- and posttests to
determine their attitudes toward careers, specifically
toward occupations non-traditional for their sex. Classroom
activities, such as the viewing of filmstrips, class
discussions, and student-parent discussions about sex
stereotyped attitudes were conducted with the experimental
group. The results of the study, as measured by the
posttest, provide evidence that classroom activities which
provide students with information about career decision
making and nontraditional career choices and the chance to
discuss the choice process can affect student's attitudes in
a more positive direction towards nontraditional careers. In
particular, the activities and discussions conducted with
the experimental group had the greatest impact upon the male
students. These students showed significant changes in their
opinions that occupations are appropriate for both sexes.
Female students also showed positive change in their
attitudes, although their attitudes were less stereotypic at
the beginning. Even the control group experienced some
positive changes as a result of thinking about occupations
in completing the pre- and posttests. Classroom activities,
as well as involvement of parents, were recommended to
change sex-stereotyped attitudes toward nontraditional
occupations; these activities were shown to have merit even
when carried out for only a short time. (KC)
KEY DESCRIPTORS: Career-Choice; Decision-Making; Females-;
Grade-8; Grade-10; Information-Dissemination; Intervention-;
Learning-Activities; Males-; Occupational-Information;
Program-Effectiveness; Secondary-Education; Sex-Fairness;
Vocational-Education
KEY DESCRIPTORS: *Affirmative-Action; *Attitude-Change;
*Change-Strategies; *Nontraditional-Occupations; *Sex
Stereotypes; *Student-Attitudes
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