In our last blog, we focused on the practice of exposing adolescents to work environments through the Take Our Kids to Work Day (TOKW) movement.  We highlighted the necessity of individuals linking occupational information with their perceived self-attributes, a process that promotes the development of a vocational identity.  The growth in self-understanding does not cease with the ending of the growth phase of career development. Moreover, we maintain that individuals who do not continue to link self-information and occupational information during the exploration phase will likely lack the meta-dimensions of clarity, certainty, and harmony as they understand the components of their self-concept system. We strongly support the TOKW initiative but suggest that the career practitioners involved need to go farther by preparing and processing the day with participants.  The focus of this blog is to suggest ways that practitioners can facilitate the linking of occupational information with self-precepts to enhance vocational identity formation by preparing and process the experience with their participants.   

First, often the focus of TOKW is on the provision of factual occupational information only.  While this provision is an important component, it is best experienced by encouraging adolescents to link this occupational information with their perceived self-attributes.   TOKW is an episode in the life of an adolescent. As such, it has a significant potential to enhance vocational identity either in helping the individual to make choices in favor of or against an occupation, or to lack overall relevance.  Episodes help to develop the self-concept and consequently ensuring the TOKW episode is appropriately prepared for and processed contributes to the elaboration of the self-concept and to vocational identity.  A critical component of any episode is the context in which it happens.  We think that helping adolescents to prepare for TOKW helps them to build a framework around what to anticipate during the episode.  Providing adolescents with questions to ask about the work environment (Holland’s work environments are helpful here) and about the psychological (aptitudes, skills, interests, values, personality traits) and social (occupational role, salary, educational requirements, occupational future) aspects of each occupation encountered helps them to develop appropriate concepts.  These concepts contribute to their understanding of the world of work, and to making the links between their perceived self-attributes and the occupational information learned during the episode.

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