Evaluating FOCUS‐2's Effectiveness in Enhancing First‐Year College Students’ Social Cognitive Career Development

This study examined the effectiveness of the computer‐assisted career guidance system, FOCUS‐2, on 1st‐year college students’ social cognitive career development. Specifically, the authors assessed career decision self‐efficacy (CDSE) and assessment of attributions for career decision making (AACDM) using repeated measures analyses of variance with a sample of 1st‐year college students (N= 420). Effectiveness was measured as a change in participants’ CDSE and AACDM scores from pretest to posttest. Results demonstrated that participants’ interaction with FOCUS‐2 was associated with increases in participants’ CDSE and alteration to a less optimistic style for AACDM. Gender, race, academic major status, and the amount of time using FOCUS‐2 were also considered. Implications for practice are explored.     

Rural Appalachian High School Students’ College‐Going and STEMM Perceptions

The authors examined perceptions of key social cognitive career theory (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994) variables related to college‐going and science, technology, engineering, math, and medical (STEMM) careers in 10th and 11th graders (N = 892) attending 3 rural Appalachian high schools. The authors examined differences in perceptions related to gender, prospective 1st‐generation college student status, and the presence or absence of aspirations to pursue a STEMM career. Young women and young men scored similarly on all but 1 dependent variable, college‐going self‐efficacy (young women scored higher). Students who had STEMM career aspirations had higher scores on every measure than those who did not. Results suggest examining a 3rd prospective 1st‐generation college student status group—students who are unsure of their parents’ education level—as a distinct group in future research. By examining the college‐going and STEMM attitudes of rural Appalachian high school students, this study advances the literature and informs practitioners on reducing educational and vocational inequalities in this region.     

Identification and Integration of Career Theory: Students’ Perspectives on the Process

In many counseling programs, while students are learning about career theory, they may be tasked in a separate course with identifying a theoretical approach to counseling. This may result in a dichotomous situation in which students lack an understanding of the relationship between career theory and counseling theory. Career counselors have long recognized the artificial distinction between career counseling and general counseling. However, counselor education programs generally lag, and there is a dearth of literature regarding the process of identifying and integrating career theory and counseling theory. This phenomenological study examined 6 students’ perceptions of the process of career theory identification and integration. Analysis of in‐depth interviews yielded 5 major themes: theory identification and integration, perceptions of career counseling, resources, personal dimensions, and application across the life span. Findings of this study have the potential to inform counselor education pedagogy regarding career theory identification and its application to the counseling context.     

An Emergent Phenomenon of American Indian Secondary Students’ Career Development Process

Nine single‐race American Indian secondary students’ career development experiences were examined through a phenomenological methodology. All 9 participants were in the transition period starting in late secondary school (age 18). Data sources included individual interviews and journal analysis. The phenomenon of American Indian secondary students’ career development process comprised 7 themes, which were integrated into 3 interacting dimensions: introspective, relational, and contextual. Findings reveal unique career development processes for American Indian secondary students living in tribal settings, including career decision process, career options, outcome expectations, and self‐efficacy. Implications for school counselors and counselor educators are discussed.     

Social Capital and Residential Decision Making Among Rural and Nonrural College Graduates

Due to the low demand for highly educated workers in rural areas, high‐achieving rural students have been portrayed as having to pick between staying close to home and facing limited economic opportunities or leaving to pursue higher education and socioeconomic advancement. But what of those who want both—college degree and return to rural living? Comparing the experiences of rural graduates who returned to rural locales with those who out‐migrated and nonrural graduates across one predominantly rural state, this study explores how social capital matters in the residential decision‐making process. Proximity to work and family were the primary factors determining adult residence. Sense of place—but not attachment to a specific community—also mattered, especially for rural graduates. Family, school, and community social capital were more likely to play a role in career development for rural students, as career aspirations during adolescence followed by career‐driven college choices created pathways for rural return. Findings underscore the importance of analyzing rural return from a regional lens, as respondents reframed lifestyle elements researchers tend to portray as mutually exclusive—rural lifestyle, proximity to family, and professional career—as compatible by employing broad and flexible definitions of proximity and place.     

Profiles of High School Students’ STEM Career Aspirations

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields have a need for recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce. Understanding students’ aspiration to STEM careers is important for supporting underrepresented populations. Data from a nationally representative sample (N = 20,010) of high school students who reported career aspirations were analyzed. Analyses revealed significant relations between students’ aspirations and demographic variables, and differences in aspirations based on students’ race and gender. Findings highlight a need for counselors to implement career interventions that address students’ cultural contexts.     

Social Capital in Rural and Urban Communities1

Abstract Conventional wisdom says that social capital is more common among families in rural communities than urban communities. Using data from the 1988 wave of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we compare the prevalence, type, and extent of social exchanges in these places. Results indicate that families living in rural areas are more likely to exchange exclusively with kin than are families living in urban areas. In particular, families living in rural areas are more likely to receive money help from kin than families in urban areas. Results on patterns of giving are more complex, with rural origin families with younger household heads more likely to give support to kin, and rural origin families with older heads less likely to provide such support, as compared to otherwise similar families of urban origin. Finally, only modest urban-rural differences in amounts exchanged (in dollars) are found among otherwise similar families. Overall, some of the urban-rural differences in patterns of exchange are explained by different family characteristics; however, key urban-rural differences remain, probably reflecting differences in norms and the availability of institutional support services in different areas.     

Threats and Supports to Female Students’ Math Beliefs and Achievement

This study examines how student perceptions of teacher practices contribute to female high school students’ math beliefs and achievement. Guided by the expectancy–value framework, we hypothesized that students’ motivation beliefs and achievement outcomes in mathematics are fostered by teachers’ emphasis on the relevance of mathematics and constrained by gender‐based differential treatment. To examine these questions, structural equation modeling was applied to a longitudinal panel of 518 female students from the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study. While controlling for prior achievement and race, gendered differential treatment was negatively associated with math beliefs and achievement, whereas relevant math instruction was positively associated with these outcomes. These findings suggest inroads that may foster positive math motivational beliefs and achievement among young women.     

Marriage and Family Therapy Students’ Experience with Common Factors Training

With the increased empirical and theoretical support for common factors in the psychotherapy literature, marriage and family therapy (MFT) scholars have begun discussing the inclusion of common factors in MFT training. However, there is very little empirical research on common factors training or how to include common factors in MFT curricula. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to investigate MFT students’ experience with common factors training. Seventeen master's degree students who received training in common factors participated in the study. Data was comprised of participants’ journal reflections and focus group interviews on their experience learning about common factors and how this influenced their work with clients. Participants’ responses to the training were overwhelmingly positive and highlighted the ways in which studying common factors enhanced their confidence, understanding of MFT models, conceptual abilities, and clinical practice. Additional results and discussion about incorporating common factors in MFT training are presented     

社会资本与女大学生自主创业

社会资本理论是分析研究女大学生创业难问题的独特视角。当前,女大学生自主创业面临的主要问题来源于其社会性别身份造成的社会认可度低、创领域与行业结构化以及自主创业意识与主动精神淡薄等方面,社会资本理论为解决上述问题提供了理论上的可能性,这是由社会资本的社会性特征与女大学生的群体性特征、社会资本的投入性特征与女大学生自主创业的条件性特征共同决定的。在社会资本理论下,女大学生应增强社会资本积累的主动意识,在构建社会关系中积累社会资本,在社团活动中拓展增值社会资本,高校也应当积极作为,为女大学生创业者与高校社会资本的深度融合创造条件。     

Lobbying to Stay: the Chinese Students’ Campaign to Stay in Australia

This paper examines the way in which onshore asylum seekers lobby to stay in the host country permanently, and how they interact with local institutions. This study is based on a multi‐method case study of about 45,000 Chinese nationals in Australia, mostly students, who sought to stay after the so‐called political disturbance of 1989 in China. The students succeeded in obtaining residence by pursuing intensive lobbying activities over a period of about four years from June 1989 to November 1993, becoming the largest onshore migration intake in Australian history. This paper is concerned with how the students and their organizations negotiated the changing stance of the Australian government towards asylum seekers, and the way in which the students harnessed resources in the campaign. It examines the strategies adopted by the students, the roles of the main local institutions in the issue, and analyses the permissiveness of local polities.     

Re‐Thinking Migrants’ Networks and Social Capital: A Case Study of Iranians in Turkey

Existing research on international migration has focused on the importance of social networks and social capital in the countries of origin and destination. However, much less is known about the importance of social networks and associated social capital in transit countries. Drawing on ethnographic research on Iranian transit migrants in Turkey, this paper argues that migrant networks and social capital are equally important in transit countries. These networks, however, do not always generate positive social capital for Iranian migrants as there are scarce resources and there is no “enforceable trust”. Iranian migrant networks reorganized in a transit country like Turkey are not static structures and they are largely affected by macro‐variables such as current immigration and asylum policies of Turkey and Europe, transnationalism and globalization, and other place‐specific features like Turkey’s location bridging East and West, the existence of human smuggling networks, and its proximity to Iran. But Iranian migrant networks in Turkey are also affected by micro‐variables, such as gender, religion, and ethnicity of individual migrants.     

Talking about Work: School Students’ Views on their Paid Employment

Seventy 15‐year‐old students in rural and urban Scottish schools, who had previously answered questionnaires about the extent of their part‐time employment, were interviewed. Work appears to be the norm in their communities, 79 per cent having worked and most of the others anticipating working before leaving school. Although the interviewees’ accounts of their jobs give some support to those who argue that most of the paid employment school students undertake is routine and boring, it was also found that most of the young workers found their work satisfying and believed that their experience of working helped to prepare them for adult life. It is proposed that research on the meaning of employment for school students should be extended and that the self‐report techniques currently employed might be supplemented by observational studies. © 2006 The Author(s). Copyright © 2005 National Children's Bureau.     

社会资本理论视角下家庭社会资本存量与大学生人际交往能力关系的实证研究

目的:从社会资本理论视角出发,探究家庭社会资本与大学生人际交往能力的作用机制。方法:采用方便抽样与滚雪球抽样,设计家庭资本存量量表并选用林迪奇等设计的人际交往能力量表,对大学本科生进行调查。结果:调查有效对象134人,家庭社会资本得分为(60.22±13.11),人际交往能力得分为(76.65±12.70)。大学生人际交往能力在家庭阶层、父母学历方面存在显著差异:父亲小学学历子女人际交往能力平均得分最低,本科及以上人际交往能力平均得分最高;低保户家庭个体得分明显低于小康与中产之家。多元线性回归分析显示,家庭社会资本对人际交往能力具有正向显著影响(β=0.44,P<0.05),具体而言,家庭资源对人际关系建立、冲突控制与自我表露能力有正向预测作用(β=0.051,0.300,0.503;P<0.05);家庭内信任对情感支持能力有正向预测作用(β=0.283,P<0.05)。结论 :家庭社会资本对大学生情感支持、冲突控制等维度有显著影响,要强化对家庭资本的地位认知,完善家庭资本,帮助提升大学生人际交往能力。     

Social Capital and Human Mortality: Explaining the Rural Paradox with County‐Level Mortality Data

The “rural paradox” refers to standardized mortality rates in rural areas that are unexpectedly low in view of well‐known economic and infrastructural disadvantages there. We explore this paradox by incorporating social capital, a promising explanatory factor that has seldom been incorporated into residential mortality research. We do so while being attentive to spatial dependence, a statistical problem often ignored in mortality research. Analyzing data for counties in the contiguous United States, we find that: (1) the rural paradox is confirmed with both metro‐nonmetro and rural‐urban continuum codes, (2) social capital significantly reduces the impacts of residence on mortality after controlling for race and ethnicity and socioeconomic covariates, (3) this attenuation is greater when a spatial perspective is imposed on the analysis, (4) social capital is negatively associated with mortality at the county level, and (5) spatial dependence is strongly in evidence. A spatial approach is necessary in county‐level analyses such as ours to yield unbiased estimates and optimal model fit.     

Spatial Heterogeneity,Social Capital,and Rural Larceny and Burglary

We explore the role of social capital in explaining patterns of rural larceny and burglary crime rates. We find consistent evidence that higher levels of social capital tend to be associated with lower levels of rural property crime rates. We also find that there is significant spatial heterogeneity in the underlying data‐generating process. This spatial heterogeneity suggests that relying on global estimates from classical statistical methods, such as least squares, may lead to erroneous policy recommendations at the local level. We suggest that some of the inconsistencies in the ecological empirical criminology literature might be explained by spatial heterogeneity.     

“Yes,I Can”: Testing an Intervention to Increase Middle School Students’ College and Career Self‐Efficacy

Middle school is the appropriate time for students to begin exploring careers and improving self‐efficacy; however, empirically supported career and college readiness interventions for U.S. middle school students are limited. Examining the effect of an intervention that combined a virtual experience and a local college visit on middle school students (99 girls, 74 boys), the authors found that participating students had higher levels of college and career self‐efficacy than did nonparticipating students. The study shows that a workshop of the online Florida CHOICES program coupled with a campus visit increased middle school student career and college self‐efficacy. Future research should include longitudinal studies and use of diverse populations to improve generalizability of study results.     

School Context and Individual Acculturation: How School Composition Affects Latino Students’ Acculturation*

Understanding how schools—a key context for children—shape students' cultural trajectories is important since these trajectories are tied to youth development and achievement. This study assessed how the size of the school's group of acculturated Latino and non‐Latino students influenced the acculturation of 1,720 Latino 5th‐grade students from urban public schools in the Southwest United States. A longitudinal secondary data analysis revealed that controlling for wave 1 acculturation, youths in schools with larger proportions of linguistically acculturated students were more acculturated at wave 2 than youths in schools with smaller proportions of such students. This effect was independent of Latino students' baseline acculturation level and was found even in schools with minority proportions of more acculturated students.