Figure - uploaded by Gloria Marsay
Content may be subject to copyright.
Burning Glass (2015) Basic Skill Requirements.
Source publication
This paper uses a social justice perspective to recommend a number of program design strategies for improving high need, high opportunity youth access to quality education, career and workforce development. Globally, high need, high opportunity youth refer to the estimated 500 million youth who live on less than $2 per day, the estimated 600 millio...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... their examination of labor market trends, Burning Glass (2015) identifies six baseline skill clusters that describe the transferable technical and deeper human skills that will enable youth to access a wide range of decent work opportunities. These baseline skills clusters include: Presentation and Persuasion, Customer Service, Project Management, Research and Strategy, Positive Disposition, Supervision and Detail Oriented (Table 1). Industry recognized lists of transferable skills like these offered by Burning Glass can be added to group activities such as the "Who Am I" lesson found in Making My Future Work ( Perry et al., 2014). ...Context 2
... their examination of labor market trends, Burning Glass (2015) identifies six baseline skill clusters that describe the transferable technical and deeper human skills that will enable youth to access a wide range of decent work opportunities. These baseline skills clusters include: Presentation and Persuasion, Customer Service, Project Management, Research and Strategy, Positive Disposition, Supervision and Detail Oriented (Table 1). Industry recognized lists of transferable skills like these offered by Burning Glass can be added to group activities such as the "Who Am I" lesson found in Making My Future Work ( Perry et al., 2014). ...Similar publications
Although Morocco has launched several programs designed to provide job opportunities for young people, youth unemployment rates remain high. This paper argues these programs have proven ineffective and are compounded by an unsustainable business envirenment, and presents some recommendations to ensure the planned reforms in the youth employment sec...
Citations
... To facilitate the formation of a STEM career identity, youths participated in a series of My Career and Academic Plan (MyCAP) [41] lessons that explicitly explored how the NetSci skills they were learning could be considered an emerging talent that is transferable to a wide range of STEM and non-STEM career options [20]. MyCAP is the Massachusetts term for an Individualized Learning Plan (ILP), which is a national college and career readiness effort that engages youths in personalized career and academic planning. ...
... 42)." ILP activities offer youths opportunities to become aware of their emerging talent (self-exploration skills), identify occupational opportunities that align with their emerging talents (career exploration skills), develop academic course plans, and consider early college and certifications, as well as post-secondary pathways that align with their future careers and life goals (Career planning and management skills) [20]. ...
In response to the low representation of Latinx adults in STEM occupations, this community-based participatory action research study aims to increase the number of middle school youths developing STEM career identities and entering high school with the intention to pursue STEM careers. The students were provided with summer and after-school activities focusing on network science and career development curricula. Using a quasi-experimental pretest–posttest design and career narratives, this study examined the changes in STEM and career self-efficacy, as well as career identity. The results show improvements in self-efficacy, an increased number of youths with intentions of pursuing future STEM career opportunities, and deeper reflections on their talents and skills after program participation. This paper also describes the program development and implementation in detail, as well as the adaptations that resulted from COVID-19, for scholars and educators designing similar programs. This study provides promising evidence for the quality of STEM and career development lessons in supporting the emergence of a STEM career identity and self-efficacy.
... The workforce development system offers important opportunities for youth to move them from "disconnection" to a positive educational and employment trajectory. Indeed, the term "opportunity" youth is favored by many scholars rather than "disconnected" youth (Boat et al., 2021;Wang et al., 2021;Solberg et al., 2021). ...
Youth who are disconnected from both education and work are at risk for a difficult life trajectory. This population requires policy and practice attention from social work. In this article, we report results from two research studies in the United States focused on the workforce development system serving the disconnected youth population. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 61 respondents in various geographic areas.
Findings
The focus of the analysis was data related to youth strengths and employment-related realities. Additionally, we examined the extent to which social work was reportedly engaged in this work. Respondents identified strengths of the youth population to include resilience, creativity, and willingness to contribute their perspectives. The described realities of employment suggest many challenges (e.g., employer reluctance, limited information on opportunities, and immediate economic realities). Social work was only mentioned in a few instances but in a positive light.
Applications
The findings have direct application for guiding further social work engagement in this practice and policy area. These applications include providing leadership to workforce development systems in the use of strengths perspectives, meeting youth where they are at, engaging in holistic interventions to address basic needs, and strengthening collaborations. Applications to social work research and education are also identified.
... The common interest among the research teams is to understand whether and to what extent educators perceive SEL as important skills for improving classroom climate (Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, et. al., 2011), providing the foundation for positive youth development (Solberg, Park & Marsay, 2020), and helping youth develop critical career and workforce readiness skills (Yoder, Atwell, Godek, et. al., 2020). ...
... This paper is a "snapshot" in a video of a much longer research process which continues. Building future-ready resilient youth with hope for success in their future requires an important shift in perspective and practice, especially when designing interventions among high-need, high-risk youth (Solberg, Park & Marsay, 2020). ...
... A significant body of research suggests SEL interventions linked to personal agency (motivation) and educational achievement (skills) are critical for preparing youth to be future ready (Solberg et al., 2020;Marsay et al., 2021). Furthermore, Jagers, Rivas-Drake and Williams (2019) emphasise how transformative SEL skills are for addressing equity among a culturally diverse youth. ...
... In South Africa, we need to be mindful of developing future readiness programmes that are formulated from our needs, rather than using theories and practices, which may not be relevant for our context. A strong case can be made for implementing SEL skills interventions to advance the South African learning environment (Zins et al., 2003;Solberg et al. 2020). ...
Youth have difficulty making the transition from education to the workplace in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. High levels of youth unemployment prevail in South Africa, and it is necessary to find ways to assist youth to enter the workplace. The purpose of this grounded theory study is to explore how educators view the efficacy of social and emotional learning (SEL) skills in the learning environment. There is evidence worldwide that implementation of SEL skills is effective for improving academic achievement as well as success in the future life. Findings indicate that 68 participating purposive selected educators, who wrote written responses to openended questionnaires, believe SEL skills would have a positive impact on the learning environment; would be essential for learners to become future ready; and would be beneficial to themselves as educators both personally and professionally. Educators referred frequently to the importance of building interpersonal relationships, self-management and social awareness skills. It would be prudent, as a next step of exploration, to collaborate with educators and learners to co-construct effective interventions and formal support structures with policymakers, for the benefit of all those in the learning environment.
... The fifth issue appears as a rejoinder of issue four, that is, the quality of development frameworks adopted in a number of less-developing nations have little relevance in terms of curtailing youth unemployment (Solberg et al., 2021). ...
... The common interest among the research teams is to understand whether and to what extent educators perceive SEL as important skills for improving classroom climate (Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, et. al., 2011), providing the foundation for positive youth development (Solberg, Park & Marsay, 2020), and helping youth develop critical career and workforce readiness skills (Yoder, Atwell, Godek, et. al., 2020). ...
... Drawing from Solberg et al's (2020) recommendations, career development systems and programs need to shift from a career choice and decision-making paradigm to the establishment of quality interventions that enable 'high need, high opportunity' youth to explore how their SEL skills align with a range of informal and formal occupational opportunities. The development of freely accessible SEL educational materials, resources, career guidance, and training suited to different age groups including youth, adolescents, and young adults is necessary to address inequities in funding and resources experienced by high need, high opportunity youth. ...
The 4th Industrial Revolution (IR) is disrupting almost every industry across the globe. Characterized as ‘a fusion of technologies,’ the 4th IR is blurring the line between physical and digital spaces and influencing the rapid transformation of business and government
systems with the potential to improve the quality of our life, including educational opportunities (Schwab, 2016). This paper discusses challenges of the 4th IR in four sub-Saharan African countries – Burkina Faso, South Africa, Togo, and Uganda – as they
relate to the skills that cannot be replaced by robots and machinesand the importance of social and emotional learning skills. The premise of this paper is that SEL can help young people respond to the challenges and opportunities of the 4th IR even in countries that
are less technologically advanced and might seem weakly influenced or uninfluenced by it. It concludes with implications for educational materials, in particular the use of online resources and social media as a fast-growing method for providing information and training,
and on what needs to be considered for designing educational materials in the post-COVID era.
... In alignment with and expanding upon others who have argued for a more collaborative and social justice oriented approach to vocational psychology (Blustein et al., 2019;Brewster & Molina, 2021;Hooley et al., 2018;McWhirter & McWha-Hermann, 2021;Solberg et al., 2021), we propose that the field of vocational psychology can open new possibilities for research and practice that focus on systematic change if we start to view career development from an economic justice lens rather than a neoliberal capitalist lens. As vocational psychologists begin to think about potential new roles, theories, and research from an economic justice lens, we may be able to also shift our thinking from solely helping individuals adapt to unfair systems to changing those systems. ...
... In starting to think about the systemic change efforts within vocational psychology, we must agree that individual career development is shaped by macro-economic forces that are often beyond the control of the individual (McWhirter & McWha-Hermann, 2021;Solberg et al., 2021). Economic opportunity in most Western countries, and in particular the U.S., is largely based on a complex system of neoliberal capitalism that centers an approach to workers as part of the system that helps drive the economic engine. ...
... Vocational psychologists and those in career guidance are starting to make a call for an ideological shift in our profession recognizing that the current economic system based on a neoliberal perspective is simply inadequate to fulfill the needs of society (Brewster & Molina, 2021;Solberg, et al., 2021;Hooley et al., 2018). There seems to be some recognition that the current values of the neoliberal economy are in stark contrast with the values of social justice and common good. ...
In the present paper, we join the current dialogue in the field of vocational psychology regarding how neoliberal economic trends across the world have influenced the development of theory and approaches to vocational psychology. We propose an alternative perspective, that viewing career development from an economic justice lens, can provide an alternative to the existing neoliberal influence. An economic justice lens may aid us in moving from solely focusing on individual interventions and outcomes to those that help to create community-level change which in turn help create a more just economy for all. This is more than simply providing interventions to individuals in a community but requires shifting the locus of change to the community level. We detail four proposed career outcomes that center community-level change: Networking, Conscientization, Participation, and Liberation. Opportunities to utilize participatory action research, social network analysis, and other practice methods are encouraged. Finally, we offer examples of how vocational psychologists can take active roles in an economic justice approach to vocational psychology.
... As part of an effort to understand how financial literacy can help reduce the gender gap issue and increase the number of female leaders in finance, this paper uses Individualized Learning Plan as a conceptual model that promotes financial literacy skills within the frame of career development. ILPs have shown promise in preparing youth for the transition to adulthood and helping them become "future-ready" by identifying occupational goals and building skills aligned to the goals that are transferable to a wide range of occupations [25,26]. Quality ILPs consist of: (1) a document that lists students' ILP activities; (2) the process of youth identifying future goals and recording/updating their personalized pathway aligned to these goals [27]. ...
This study examines the effectiveness of a financial literacy program, Invest in Girls (IIG), in promoting financial capability among high school girls. Using a quasi-experimental separate-samples pretest-posttest design and a longitudinal qualitative study, the study aims to assess the program efficacy and investigate the perspectives of the female students on its impact on their knowledge, behavior, and future goals and aspirations. The results indicated that the participants had significantly higher confidence for engaging in financial literacy after the program. The findings from the longitudinal study also suggested that that the program was influencing the students in positive ways, increasing their financial capability and leading them to consider wide occupational pathways available in finance. Given the lack of female leaders in the world of finance, the IIG program aims to address gender disparity in financial knowledge and highlight the importance of building financial literacy skills among girls.
... The framework that provides an over-arching rationale for our efforts is the UN Sustainable Development Goals that were adopted internationally to address growing concerns of a global economic collapse [31]. In this section, we propose a logic model ( Figure 1) that describes how our environment-centered community intervention efforts are aligned with 8 of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals [19,32,33] (SDGs; UN). The logic model situates the primary aim of our effort as increasing the number of high-need, highopportunity youth who access decent, high paying, work (SDG 8). ...
... Life design challenges the traditional career development practice by questioning the use of validated assessments to help clients find the best fit between their personal qualities and occupations that align with those qualities [3]. Our collaborative efforts are consistent with life design's encouragement to use more narrative assessment strategies, move away from using objective measures of interests and personality, and focus on and malleable and evidence-based personal qualities (e.g., self-efficacy, self-determination, motivation, goal setting) that are known to support youth in becoming more proactive, resilient and adaptable [16,18,19,34]. ...
... While life design aims to address these inequities using interventions that develop "coping strategies," our collaboration seeks to enable youth to develop the human, technical, and career management skills [40] needed to become future-ready. We define "future-ready" as youth who begin shaping their future learning and life opportunities by becoming proactive, resilient, and adaptable young adults [19]. ...
This is the first of two sequential papers describing the design and first-year implementation of a collaborative participatory action research effort between Sociedad Latina, a youth serving organization in Boston, Massachusetts, and Boston University. The collaboration aimed to develop and deliver a combined STEM and career development set of lessons for middle school Latinx youth. In the first paper, life design and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals are described in relation to the rationale and the design of the career development intervention strategy that aims to help middle school youth discover the ways that learning advanced-STEM skills expand future decent work opportunities both within STEM and outside STEM, ultimately leading to an outcome of well-being and sustainable communities. In addition to providing evidence of career development intervention strategies, a qualitative analysis of the collaboration is described. The second paper will discuss two additional frameworks that guided the design and implementation of our work. As an example of translational research, the paper will provide larger national and regional contexts by describing system level career development interventions underway using Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological and person–process–context–time frameworks.
