Getting Real: Helping Teens Find Their Future

This book seeks to provide educators, parents, employers, and communities with specific strategies to help teenagers pinpoint the disparity between their preconceived career notions and aspirations, and the realities of the new economic and labor markets. This book advocates helping students develop a plan for career success, which may or may not include college. The overall goal is to stimulate efforts to develop a level of career direction among students that allows them to make postsecondary plans with a high probability of success. The book is divided into two parts. Part one provides background information necessary for career development efforts, labor market realities for this generation of teenagers, details regarding career opportunities, and reasons to counter occupational stereotypes. Part two provides information and strategies for developing career development programs, tactics to foster career maturity among teenagers, postsecondary alternatives for teenagers, and specific messages for talking to parents and the business community. (Contains 61 references and an index.) (GCP)