SOCIO-CULTURAL FACTORS INFLUENCING STUDENT'S CAREER CHOICE

SOCIO-CULTURAL FACTORS INFLUENCING STUDENT'S CAREER CHOICE

Background of the study

Student’s career ‘choice’ is a subject which has attracted academic, professional as well as public attention due to its multifaceted nature. Since career is a result of the interplay between individuals within organizational and social structures, it yields well to analysis form diverse perspectives ranging from occupational psychology to organizational sociology. Research on student’s career choice is not uncommon on occupational groups such as accountants and, health care professionals (Morrison 2004; Hallissey et. al, 2000, Kyriacou and Colthatt, 2000. The aim of such research is often to predict students career choice behaviour based on personality as well as demographic distributive factors. When we think about career choice, several things immediately come to mind, such as job description, training and education required, career outlook, as well as salary - but there are a number of other factors that may influence an individual’s decision. Thus, skills and abilities, that is, considering the individual's skills and abilities and how they may fit a particular occupation comes out of one of the earliest career development field, trait factor theory, and is still in use today. It is important to understand that career choice is not made based on any one factor is our choices are subject to many influences; individual, cultural, social and environmental. The combination and interaction of various influences on an individual decision-making are unique to him or her and the individual's" situation. The number of choices that we are aware of and the number of choices that exist and are available to us in reality may differ. Furthermore, there may be choices that we are not aware of, or which are unavailable to us due to structural constraint that we may fail to recognize. Lack of awareness of our full range of choices may lead us to make use of a limited range of career alternatives or opportunity structures. Understanding factors that impact on career `choice' would be instrumental in designing and delivering better informed counselling and mentorship (Rant and Michael, 1983). Sheridan et.al, noted that the initial career ‘choice’ of managers and the relative status of their department play a role in outcomes of their career tournament, such as promotion, transfer, and salary progression. Therefore, identifying possible influences of career choice is important as such influences may impact on job entry behaviour as well as subsequent career outcomes. Some people strongly belief that university graduation provides advantages in employment in comparison to high school graduation. Thus, a university entrance examination is regarded as the most important stage and pathway for business life and employment. As a result of this believe, admission to university, even a less preferred one is regarded as more important than the quality of the match between occupations and individual abilities. (Ozkale et. al; 2004). The mismatch and graduation from a less preferred discipline have considerable impacts in the early years of careers (Erdogmus, 2003), resulting in a continuation of the career `choice' process subsequent to graduation from the first university degree. Parents as the key source of funding for children education may be interpreted as an indication of a form of collectivist culture (Price, 1997).

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