@article{CareerandTechnicalEducationintheEraofCollegeandCareerReadiness:InfluencesonYouthPostsecondaryAspirationsin"Oaksburg:3023,
      recid = {3023},
      author = {Cashdollar, Sarah Elizabeth},
      title = {Career and Technical Education in the Era of College and  Career Readiness: Influences on Youth Postsecondary  Aspirations in "Oaksburg, USA"},
      publisher = {The University of Chicago},
      school = {Ph.D.},
      address = {2021-06},
      pages = {273},
      abstract = {The organizing ideal of educational equity in U.S. public  schools, premised on ensuring that all students have equal  opportunities to attain the highest levels of achievement,  has most recently manifested as efforts by policymakers and  practitioners to promote “college and career readiness.”  These efforts reflect the goal of maintaining students’  access to bachelor’s and advanced degrees, while  simultaneously ensuring that those who do not achieve these  degrees have access to other forms of quality career  training (e.g. community college, apprenticeships,  on-the-job training). Career and technical education (CTE),  a model of vocational education that integrates  high-quality academic learning, has become central to these  efforts due to its emphasis on sub-baccalaureate career  pathways. 

The popularity and decentralized spread of CTE  nationally has led to variation in how educators understand  its goals, with unknown implications for program design and  student outcomes. Some scholars of education and sociology  have expressed concern that CTE’s success at preparing  students for sub-baccalaureate careers may come at the  expense of rigorous preparation for four-year college,  inadvertently reproducing tracking between academic and CTE  coursework. Drawing on sensemaking and vocational  development frameworks, this dissertation reveals how  ideals of equity are manifest by educational stakeholders  as they make sense of and implement CTE, and it analyzes  implications for students.

Findings are derived from a  case study in a manufacturing region of Pennsylvania that I  call “Oaksburg.” I conducted semi-structured interviews  with 52 school leaders and other education stakeholders  across the community, and I spent 114 hours observing  stakeholder meetings and student college and career  readiness events. I also administered a survey on  aspirations and vocational development to 1,200 students at  “Oaksburg High School,” analyzing the differences between  CTE concentrators in manufacturing and construction  (“trades concentrators”), students who spent a great deal  of time preparing for four-year college (“college  concentrators”), and students with little engagement in  postsecondary preparation (“non-concentrators”).  

Educational stakeholders purposefully framed CTE as  separate from academic learning, contradicting CTE policy  goals and challenging notions of equity based on expanding  bachelor’s degree attainment. They aimed to portray  vocational learning as equal in status to traditional  academic coursework, worthy of pursuit in its own right. I  argue that this understanding of CTE’s goals reflects  school leaders’ shifting ideals of educational equity in  response to changes in the local opportunity structure.  However, in well-intentioned efforts to elevate CTE’s  status, education stakeholders often painted an  unrealistically optimistic picture of how much students  could expect to earn with sub-baccalaureate degrees  relative to bachelor’s degrees.

Survey data reveal that,  although trades concentrators had lower educational  aspirations than their demographically similar peers, they  had strong vocational identity and career maturity. At the  same time, they overestimated how much they could expect to  earn in sub-baccalaureate careers. Non-concentrators, who  were disproportionately low-income and racial/ethnic  minority students, had the lowest levels of vocational  development. These findings point to the need for expanded  efforts to communicate accurate information about careers  and provide opportunities to explore them, which would  enhance support for students to achieve the goals they set  for themselves.              },
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/3023},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.3023},
}