Career Education and COP: A Natural Combination.

Overview & Synopsis

The effect of the Career Opportunities (COP) and the concept and movement of career education coincide; the element common to both is the linking of schooling and work throughout a person's lifetime. Career education basically involves three stages on the part of individuals: awareness, exploration, and training. Two later stages are career training and lifelong learning, and COP participants in particular are concerned with these. The career education field is experiencing problems, however, due to confusion with vocational education, career education's implied threat to traditional education, its antiintellectual and antihumanistic image, and its high cost. These problems have implications for the largely minority-group COP participants. The development of career education has been rapid but uneven, and its future depends on the commitment of schools and communities to solving its problems. (A reading list is appended.) (MDW)