The Nature of the Influence of Parents on the Education and Occupational Choice of School Pupils

Abstract

This enquiry arose from the writer's experience in the Careers Service where
staff adhere to the view that parents are the single most influential factor
upon the occupational choice of a pupil. At the same time, they argue that
it is difficult for people not in regular touch with careers information to
be informed about many jobs. Experience showed, too, that only a minority of
parents had contact with careers advisers and that, because of time and work-
load, rarely did careers staff learn much about parental knowledge of work.

The aim was to discover what parents talked about to their children whether
they used their own experience to help children see what issues should be
considered, or was any help given limited to practical activities like job finding.
In addition, the survey sought to find out how parents reacted to
professional help offered. Occupational choice can be affected by choice of
educational courses so the enquiry started by asking for parents' views about
schools subjects. An attempt was made to discover if there were differences
in attitudes and actions according to parental occupational level.

A pilot stage was followed by a postal questionnaire to the parents of fifth
form pupils in three different kinds of schools. 173 were returned completed
or were completed at follow-up interviews. The school described as having the
greatest percentage of social problems produced the lowest response; but
nevertheless showed considerable agreement with the response from the other
two groups of parents.

Parents expressed interest in the topic and the need for careers advice. Their
replies indicated that they generally felt powerless to influence school advice
about subject choice and in all contacts with advisers saw their role as a
passive rather than a contributory one; that they believed pupils to be ill-informed
about work and would support schemes for working experience while at
school; that they believed the job of a boy to be more important than that of
a girl; and that the most important items to think about when choosing a job
were that it should use one's ability and interest, be worth doing and be in
long term demand. Few parents would seek to enforce their views and the nature
of their influence amounted to support and encouragement.

Date of Award	1979
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Aston University