African American Adolescents Future Education Orientation - Essay Example

Journal Article CritiqueAbstractThe paper deals with a few real life situation schools and the counseling that is incorporated within these schools. The paper has been drawn on the Krumboltz’s Social Learning Theory and the articles have been critiqued based on the theory. Also, a link has been created to understand how the theory has an impact on the schools and the counseling process within a school.Journal CritiqueThe two journals that have been chosen for this research are:a) African American Adolescents’ Future Education Orientation: Associations with Self-efficacy, Ethnic Identity, and Perceived Parental Supportb) Utah’s School Counseling Data Projects: A Statewide InitiativeBoth these articles deal with the rural are students and the issues that these students face due to the lack of appropriate teaching and well developed career planning systems.

Based on Krumboltz’s Social Learning Theory, there are four main factors that affect the career decision making include: a) Genetic Endowment and special abilities, b) Environmental conditions and events, c) Learning Experience and d) Task Approach Skills. Considering the forth aspect and factor that influences the career developmental plans, Task approach skills, it is essential to understand that this refers to the skills that are applied by individuals to new tasks or problems. The best examples of these include, work habits, perceptual and cognitive processes (Brown).

In the articles that have been presented, it is clear that the authors have used Krumboltz’s Social Learning Theory to assess the students and the plan is based on this assessment. In the article of Utah’s School counseling, the authors have included some essential elements like the demographic information like sex, race, creed and other relevant information based on which the authors have suggested a plan based on the explanation provided by Krumboltz. The goals that have been set down in the paper are based on the acquisition of self knowledge and the required skills for negotiating in a world where the level of uncertainty is always high.

The decision made in this article also highlights the need that people tend to take poor decisions if the learning opportunity is presented to them, and it is essential to explain the importance of the decision making by career counseling. The article has also highlights that the Utah schools have adopted counseling where the students to counselor ration should account to 350: 1. However in the schools of Utah, the schools tend to only use the counselors for specific counseling activities and not for any other activities (Bitner, -Stevenson and Burnham).

This allows more effectiveness and concentration of the counselors on the student needs and requirements. A similar situation for a more specific group of students has been presented in the other article. Here again the authors have taken into account the various aspect like race, creed, age and sex of the students and planned a career development plan in an appropriate manner to assist these student develop and have also included an essential factor of the perceived parental support as well (Kerpelman, Eryigit and Stephens).

BibliographyBitner, Kathryn S, et al. "Utah's School Counseling Data Projects: A Statewide Initiative." Professional School Counseling (2009): 488 - 494.Brown, Duane. Career Information, Career Counseling, and Career Development, 9th Edition. Allyn & Bacon, 2006.Kerpelman, Jennifer L., Suna Eryigit and Carolyn J. Stephens. "a) African American Adolescents’ Future Education Orientation: Associations with Self-efficacy, Ethnic Identity, and Perceived Parental Support." J Youth Adolescence, 37:997–1008 (2008): 997 - 1008.