pointed by the National Education Association, included the Vocational education objective as one of its seven cardinal principles of education. During these early years the necessity for guidance for vocational training and for an ultimate occupational objective was frequently pointed out, and there was a growing sense of responsibility for providing school instruction in occupational information to meet these needs. In 1917 Brewer wrote:

In every school there should be a general survey course of the occupational opportunities which lie before children. It makes little difference how these occupations be classified, so long as a brief but definite examination be made of each of the main vocations with its characteristics, advantages, disadvantages or problems, remuneration, possible lines of promotion, desirable preparation, manner of entering, and service to the community.2

The need for the inclusion of such instruction in the school program was emphasized by the increasing complexity of occupational life, resulting from specialization in industry brought about by the development of new machines, new industrial products, and new services. There are today probably more than 20,000 occupations at which men may be remuneratively employed. This complexity of occupational life has made it well nigh impossible for youth to gain, through informal and absorptive methods, an adequate knowledge of the world of work to meet the vocational and civic objectives of education.

The early attempts to provide formal classroom instruction in occupational information were made in connection with courses in civics or other social science subjects. Such instruction, as a unit in some curriculum subject, began to appear about 1912 to 1916. Separate courses in occupational information began to be included in the school curriculum about 1916 to 1918. In 1920 Briggs wrote:

Life-career or occupational classes are found in a number of progressive junior high schools. That at Middletown, Conn., is perhaps the best known and has been outlined in a widely used textbook. Such a course has also been reported at Decatur, Ill.; Butte, Mont; Chelsea, Mass.; Mohnton, Pa.; and Lincoln, Nebr. In other places for example, Sacramento, Calif., and Dansville and Cuba, New Yorkinstruction is said to be given in this field.'

Brewer, John M. Vocational guidance through the life-career class. School and Society, 6:241-45. Nov. 10, 1917.

Briggs, Thomas H. The junior high school, New York, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1920, pp.

264-65.

Since those early years there has been a growing acceptance of responsibility on the part of the public schools for including in their programs of studies, instruction in occupational information.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

Questions as to how universally schools are now providing instruction in occupational information and as to the kinds of courses given, are frequently raised by school administrators, curriculum directors, and persons interested in the development of guidance services as a function of the schools. The study here reported was undertaken to provide (a) information that would indicate the extent to which instruction in occupational information is included in the public secondary schools of the United States; (b) information on the organization and content of instruction; and (c) programs of schools, representative of present practices.

SCOPE AND PLAN OF THE STUDY

To obtain information relative to the provisions for instruction in occupational information, it was necessary to resort to the method of representative sampling. A survey for this purpose of the more than 22,000 public high schools in the United States would have constituted a task disproportionate in size to the increased value it would have over a study based upon representative sampling. Lists of different kinds of public high schools, prepared by the Office of Education, were used in selecting the schools to which a question blank, asking for the information desired, was mailed. The following classification of high schools was used: Regular 4-year high school, junior-senior high school, junior high school, and senior high school.

In selecting the list of schools for each kind of high school, consideration was given to a geographic distribution by States in accordance with the number of schools in each State. The schools were also selected with regard to an equitable distribution among cities of various sizes.

The question blank included questions to obtain information on: Whether or not a course in occupational information is given, whether it is given as a separate course or as a part

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of some other subject-matter course with which it is combined, length of course, school year in which course is given, instructional materials, etc. The question blank was mailed in 1932 to approximately 1,400 public high schools. No follow-up requests were sent to schools that failed to return the blank. During 1932-33 there were returned 1,111 question blanks. Following their return a letter was sent to a small percentage of schools whose reports indicated that it might be advisable to obtain additional information about courses reported on the question blank. Information from this supplementary material is included in the descriptive part of this report.

This study is based upon returns from 1,111 public high schools enrolling 1,138,939 pupils. The number of schools included is 5 percent of the total number of all types of high schools in the United States that reported to the Office of Education in 1930, namely, 22,237. The enrollment in these high schools is 21 percent of the total enrollment in the 22,237 high schools, namely, 5,465,932.

The 1,111 public high schools returning the question blank include 460 regular 4-year high schools, 200 junior-senior high schools, 282 junior high schools, and 169 senior high schools. Of the total enrollment of 1,138,939 pupils, 567,306 are in the regular 4-year high schools; 150,073 in the juniorsenior high schools; 226,323 in the junior high schools; and 195,237 in the senior high schools.

FINDINGS

EXTENT OF OCCUPATIONAL COURSES

As shown by table 1, of the 1,111 public high schools that returned the question blank, 762, or 68.5 percent, report that they give instruction in occupational information. Of the 762 schools giving such instruction, 334, or 43.8 percent, report that a separate course is given, 391, or 51.3 percent, state that instruction is given as a part of some other course, and 37, or 4.9 percent, report that instruction in occupational information is given both as a separate course and as a part of some other course. Thirty percent of the 1,111 schools report giving a separate course in occupational information.

In addition to the 762 (68.5 percent) schools reporting course instruction in occupational information, a considerable

number of schools report that they give instruction about occupations in informal ways, such as occasional classroom and homeroom discussions, information developed in guidance and counseling, and addresses before student bodies on various vocations by outside persons engaged in the vocational fields on which they speak. No schools making provisions for only these informal means of giving information about occupations are included in the number of schools reported as giving instruction. The term giving instruction as used in the tables is limited to the 762 schools that report giving instruction in occupational information either as a separate school course, as a part of some other school course, or as both.

The tabulated data in this study have been analyzed to determine answers to the question: With what factors do provisions for instruction in occupational information rary? Some of these factors as revealed by the study follow.

Kind of school. The percentage of schools giving instruction in occupational information varies with the kinds of high schools as shown in table 1. The percentage of schools, by kinds of schools, giving instruction in occupations is:

These data show that it is in the junior high school grades that the greatest attention is given to instruction in occupational information. The rank of the different kinds of high schools relative to instruction provided in this subject is the same as their rank for the number of junior high school grades included in each kind of school, that is, the more junior high school grades included in a given kind of high school, the greater will be the percentage of schools that give instruction in occupational information.

The percentages for schools giving a separate course in occupations are:

The junior high school not only has the largest percentage of schools giving instruction in occupational information, but it is the only kind of high school that has a larger percentage of schools giving a separate course than give instruction in occupational information as a part of some other

course.

Size of school. For the purpose of studying provisions for instruction in occupational information in relation to size of high schools, the 1,111 schools were classified into four groups as follows: Group I, 54 schools with enrollments of less than 200; group II, 243 schools with enrollments of 200 to 500; group III, 609 schools with enrollments of 500 to 1,500; group IV, 179 schools with enrollments of 1,500 to 3,000; and group V, 26 schools with enrollments of 3,000 and more.

An analysis of the reports received from the 54 schools in group I shows that the schools range in size from 30 to 196 pupils. Only 10 of these schools have enrollments of fewer than 100 pupils. Of these 10 schools only 1 reports giving a separate course in occupations, only 3 report giving instruction as part of another course, while 6 schools, or 60 percent of the cases, report that no instruction is given in occupational information. Table 2 shows that schools enrolling fewer than 200 pupils give a separate course in occupational information less frequently than do schools having larger enrollments. The percent of schools giving instruction, and also the percent of the schools giving instruction that give it as a separate course, are shown below: