BRIDGING THE ROLE DIVIDE: THE HOME-SCHOOL LINK IN CAREERGUIDANCE

Abstract

This paper interrogates the role-gap between two social institutions, the
home and the school; by exploring the extent of these institutions’ cooperate
relationship, if any, in career guidance of children. Career guidance helps people
reflect on their ambitions, interests as well as help them understand the labour market.
This paper’s point of departure is the Functionalist perspective’s admission that the
home and the school, though linked by their interest in the same child are differentiated
by the varied roles they perform in the socialization of molding and preparing the child
into a perfect social being. It is this assumed divide between the roles of these two
institutions which this study wishes to investigate so as to ascertain if there are any
possibilities of bridging the gap. The study concedes that children are the pool from
which a nation‘s future human resource needs are tapped and hence due consideration
has to be taken especially on issues pertaining to their upbringing and welfare.
Premised against this backdrop, this current study intends to investigate the role of
parents and school as actors in shaping and molding children’s future careers in order
to determine the extent of parent-teacher involvement in awakening job readiness in
children. Thus, the paper will attempt to unveil the diverse parenting styles and school
conditions and their impact in realizing the human potential in children. In order to
unearth this impact of the familial and school environments in influencing children’s
academic achievement and future careers, the paper adopts a quantitative-cumqualitative
research paradigm where pupils, parents and teachers responded to
questionnaires or were interviewed. The study has, foremost, shown that children’s
career potentialities are considerably cultivated & nurtured more at school than home
and are differentiated by social class and school conditions where there is a huge early
opportunity gap between those from affluent families and their poorer compatriots. The
paper has also discovered a ‘victim-image’ of some children who experience clipped
and curtailed human rights and privileges. The research, thus, recommends that proper
child nurturing and training strategies be adopted via well coordinated and
institutionalized strategies permeating all agencies that have to do with children’s
upbringing.