Variations in Participation in

School-Based Learning of Career

Skills Among U.S. Youth

David L. Passmore
Ying-Ni Chen
Jane Okou
Wei-Ting Yu
The Pennsylvania State University

Chang-Jung Lin
Mingdao University
Presented at the 34th Annual Conference of the Northeastern Educational Association in Kerhonkson, New York, 23 October 2003.

Background learning of career skills can include the following

types of programs: a career major, cooperative
The U.S. Congress passed the School-to-Work education, internship/apprenticeship, job shadowing,
Opportunities Act (STWOA), in 1994. The Act mentoring, school-sponsored enterprise, and tech-prep.
provided federally funded grants to States and local
partnerships of business, government, education and
community organizations to develop “school-to-work Purpose
systems”. The law encouraged States and their local
partners to develop the model that would work best for
The purpose of this study is to estimate variations in
them. The Act outlined three core system elements
participation in school-based learning of career skills
that included a school-based learning component, a
among U.S. youth by sex and race. Our analysis is
work-based learning component, and a connecting
meant to open dialogue about factors that determine,
activities component, as a common trait in all school-
affect, support, or hinder participation in programs for
to-work programs. The general goal of the STWOA
school-based learning of career skills.
was to improve the transitions from school to work for
all youths in the U.S. The STWOA pointed to a “lack
Data for this study were derived from 1997, 1998,
of a comprehensive and coherent system to help
1999, and 2000 annual interviews conducted for the
youths acquire the knowledge, skills, abilities, and
National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLS97)
information about and access to the labor market that
(U.S. Department of Labor, 2002). The primary
are necessary to make an effective transition from
purpose of the NLSY97 is to collect data on youth
school to work or further education.”
labor force experiences and investments in education.
By 2000, a wide range of employment, education, and
School-based learning, one of the core elements
background information was collected from the
identified by the STWOA, is instruction managed by
NLS97 cohort. Among many other things, NLS97
schools that helps students develop career awareness,
respondents were asked about their participation in
explore career opportunities, and learn how their own
interests translate into career skills and goals. School-

school-based learning activities that were meant to
foster career skills.
Method
Target Population & Sample
The NLSY97 documents the transition from school to
work and is designed to represent the U.S. population
born during the years 1980 through 1984. The sample
of individuals in the NLSY97 cohort includes 8,984
youths who were 12 to 16 years old as of December
21, 1996 who were interviewed annually from 1997
through 2000. Two subsamples comprise this
NLSY97 cohort:
• A cross-sectional sample of 6,748 respondents,
which is designed to be representative of people
living in the United States who were born between
January 1, 1980, and December 31, 1984; and
• A supplemental sample of 2,236 respondents, which
is designed to oversample Hispanic and black
people living in the United States who were born
during the same period as the cross-sectional
sample.
The NLSY97 Round 1-4 sample design and field
procedures are documented fully by the Ohio State
University (2002, chap. 2). The NLSY97 data are
available public analysis from the U.S. Department of
Labor (2002).
Variables
All NLS97 respondents enrolled in high school at the
date of the interview occurring during each of the four
interview rounds examined in this study were asked
about their participation in school-based learning
activities. They were questioned about the
characteristics of the activities in which they
participated, including the type of the program, the
number of days or weeks spent at a work site, and the
number of hours per day or week spent at the work
site. If the respondent was paid for participating in the
program, the rate of pay was obtained. Other questions
included whether the respondents took any classes at
the work site and whether the employer wrote an
evaluation of their performance.
Dependent variables.
From among the rich variety of information available
from the NLSY97 cohort, we focus in this study on
the types of programs for school-based learning of
career skills in which NLSY97 respondents
participated. Because participation in school-based
learning is measured over time, a longitudinal view of
program participation is possible.
/2/
We analyze the incidence of participation in any and,
then, each of the following school–based programs for
learning career skills: .
* A career major—A coherent sequence of courses
based upon an occupational goal.
* Cooperative education—Students alternate or
parallel their academic and vocational studies with a
job in a related field.
* Internship/Apprenticeship—Students work for
employers for a short time to learn about particular
industries or occupations.
* Job shadowing—Students follow employees for one
or two days to learn about occupations.
* Mentoring—Students are paired with employees
who assess the students’ performance over a period
of time, during which the employees help the
students master certain skills and knowledge.
* School-sponsored enterprise—The production of
goods or services by students for sale or use by
others in enterprises that typically involve students
in the management of projects.
* Tech-prep—A planned program of study with a
defined career focus that links secondary and post-
secondary education.
During the 1997 NLSY97 interview, respondents who
reported a highest grade attended of 9th through 12th
grade were asked about their participation in these
school-based learning programs. In subsequent
interviews during 1998, 1999, and 2000, information
about program participation was obtained from all
NLSY97 respondents enrolled in school.
Specific dependent variables constructed from the
NLSY97 data set include:
* Total participation—Coded “1” if a respondent
participated in any school–based learning program
for career skills between the first (1997) and fourth
(2000) interviews; coded “0” otherwise.
* Individual program participation—Coded “1” if a
respondent participated in a specific school–based
learning program over the 1997 through 2000
period covered by the first four rounds of the
NLSY97; coded “0” of the respondent never
participated in any school–based program. There
are seven of these individual program participation
variables that are designed to measure participation
in a career major, cooperative education,
internship/apprenticeship, job shadowing,
mentoring, school-sponsored enterprise, or tech-
prep. This comparison is established to characterize
youth without any participation in any school–based
program with participants in a specific program.
Because some young people participated in more
than one school–based learning program,
structuring the comparison in this way increases,
but does not ensure, the independence of the seven
program analyses.

Independent variables.
Variations in participation in school–based learning of
career skills among U.S. youth represented by
NLSY97 respondents are analyzed by sex and race.
The measures of sex and race examined in this study
were collected during initial screening for NLYS97
sample selection and validation prior to the first
NLSY97 interview.
Dummy variable coding is applied to specify each of
the independent variables. The variable accounting for
the sex of the respondent has two obvious categories,
male (coded “1”) and female (coded “0”). The
variable coding the race of respondents contains three
categories: Black, Hispanic, and non-Black, non-
Hispanic. Two dummy variables are created to
account for race. One variable was coded “1” if the
respondent was Black, and “0” otherwise. Another
variable was coded “1” if the respondent was
Hispanic, and “0” otherwise. The reference category
for these two dummy variables accounting for race is
non-Black, non-Hispanic.
Analysis
Point and interval estimates odds ratios reflecting the
likelihood of participation in school–based learning
programs are calculated by sex and race from logistic
regression coefficient estimates. A point estimate of
the odds ratio is the antilog of a logistic regression
coefficient. This ratio is interpreted as the odds of
participation in a school–based program for learning
career skills, given a unit change on an independent
variable. An odds ratios is interpreted only when the
95% confidence interval of the odds ratio does not
include the value, 1.0.
The NLSY97 data set provides a sampling weight for
each respondent which allows estimation of
population values of logistic regression parameters in
this study to be adjusted for differential probabilities
of selection into the NLSY97 sample. We scaled the
vector of sampling weights by dividing the weight
assigned to each respondent by the mean sampling
weight for respondents with non-missing data. This
scaling results in (a) correct point estimates after
adjusting for the sampling design and, at the same
time, (b) interval estimates that are based on standard
errors of estimates calculated with the sample n rather
than with the population N and that, as a consequence,
not artificially narrow intervals.
Findings
Total Participation
We estimate that 57.7% of the 19.1 million young
people residing in the United States and born between
1980 and 1984 participated in some type of
/3/
school–based program for learning career skills during
the period 1997 through 2000. Excluded from the base
of this estimate is information about the participation
rate of approximately 230,000 young people due to
missing data about the school experiences of some
NLSY97 cohort members.*
By sex.
Males were .84 times as likely (95%CI: .77, .93) as
females to have participated on some type of
school–based program for learning career skills during
the period 1997 through 2000. Stated in another way
by taking the reciprocal of this odds ratio, females are
1.19 times more likely than males to participate in
school–based learning programs.
By race.
Blacks and Hispanics constituted 15.4% and 14.1%,
respectively, of the target population represented by
the NLSY97 cohort. Blacks were 1.29 times more
likely (95% CI: 1.15, 1.43) than non-Black, non-
Hispanics to participate in some type of program
during this period. Hispanics were .84 as likely
(95%CI: .75, .94) to have participated as non-Black,
non-Hispanics. Taking the inverse of this odds ratio
indicates that non-Black, non-Hispanics were 1.19
times more likely to participate in any school–based
program than Hispanics.
Conclusion.
This evidence estimated from the NLSY cohort
indicates that sex and race are related to participation
in a mix of programs for school–based learning of
career skills among U.S. youth.**
Individual Program Participation
Displayed in Table 1 are point estimates of
participation in programs for school–based learning of
career skills, along with point and interval estimates of
the odds of participation in these programs, among
U.S. youth between 1997 and 2000 by sex and race.
Highest participation rates over the 1997-2000 period
occurred in career programs and job shadowing. The
lowest rate of participation was in mentoring
programs.
*
These estimates result from applying sampling weights to
the NLSY97 data. Of the 8,984 NLSY97 sample members,
4,869 (55.9%) participated in some type of school–based
learning program between 1997 and 2000, 3,846 did not
participate in any program, and 269 cohort members revealed
missing data about their participation over all four interview
rounds of the NLSY97 examined in this study.
**
Estimates by sex and race are based on logistic regression
of sex and race independent variables on the total
participation dependent variable (L2 = 57.9, 3 df, p < .0001).
 /4/

Table 1.
Estimates of proportion participating and odds by sex and race of participating
in seven programs for school-based learning of career skills among U.S. youth,
1997-2000
Odds of participating (95%CI)a
Hispanic
Black compared compared with
Proportion Male compared with non-Black, non-Black, non-
Program participating with female non-Hispanic Hispanic

Career program .29 nsb 1.48 (1.31, 1.67) ns

Cooperative education .16 ns 1.54 (1.34, 1.78) ns

Internship/apprenticeship .11 ns 1.29 (1.09, 1.52) ns

Job shadowing .23 .80 (.72, .90) ns .71 (.61, 82)

Mentoring .10 .68 (.58, .79) 1.65 (1.40, 1.95) ns

School-sponsored
enterprise .13 .74 (.65, .85) 1.31 (1.12, 1.53) ns

Tech prep .14 1.27 (1.12, 1.44) 1.60 (1.39, 1.85) ns

Source: Analysis of NLSY97 data set (U. S. Department of Labor, 2002)

a
Calculated from logistic regression of the incidence of participation in a program on sex
2
and race. L for all equations with 3 df beyond critical value for a = .01.
b
ns = not significant; that is, 95% confidence interval included the value, 1.0.

By sex. of the job shadowing program. Odds of participation

of Hispanics compared with non–Black,
No differences were evident in the odds of male and
non—Hispanics were similar for all programs, with
females participation in career programs, cooperative
the exception of job shadowing. Non–Black, non-
education, and internship/apprenticeship experiences
Hispanics were 1.41 times more likely participate in
were the same. Females were more likely than males
job shadowing than Hispanics (reciprocal of odds
to participate in job shadowing and school–sponsored
ratio, or 1/.71 = 1.41).***
enterprises. However, the likelihood of participation in
tech prep programs was higher for males than for
females.

By race.
Blacks were more likely than non–Black,
non–Hispanics to participate in every school–based
learning program for career skills, with the exception
***
Logistic regression equations forming the basis for these
estimates of the odds of participation by sex and race are
available from the first author of this paper (request from
dlp@psu.edu).
 /5/

Discussion * Outcomes. Variation in patterns of participation in

school–based learning for career skills means
Participation in school–based learning of career skills nothing unless it has consequences. Therefore,
varies among types of learning programs and, to some study subsequent school outcomes is the final test of
extent, by sex and race. The estimates reported in this the worth of prior school–based learning of career
paper are simple explorations of the variation in skills. Among the possibilities are the study of the
participation in types of school–based learning of relationships of amount, type, intensity (as
career skills based on a nationally-representative measured by multiple types of participation),
sample of U.S. youth. proximity of participation to outcomes (school-
based learning that occurs close to graduation) with
Such characteristics as sex and race examined in this employability, employment, pay, and mobility.
study are proxies for other education, social, and
economic factors that affect formation of career skills
and access to resources necessary for human capital References
formation. Of course, participation in an educational
program is but a prelude the main event — the effects
Camp, W. G (1983). Social efficiency and vocational
of participation on adult life. Several tacks are
education: An examination of our changing
possible to extend this study along these lines:
philosophies. Journal of Vocational Education
* Tracking. One approach to further study is to
Research, 8(3), 10-19.
examine access to school–based learning for career
skills as a tracking problem. Differential paths
Ryan, P. (1998) Curriculum tracking by race at
among high school curricula are evident. Is it
Cleveland's East Technical for 1927 and 1939.
possible that school–based learning programs act as
Retrieved September 14, 2003, from
another refinement of tracking systems, similar to
http://www.utdallas.edu/~pryan/2301%20Resources
ability grouping, which sort students according to
/race_tracking.html
what the early vocational education movement
described as their “probable destinies” (see Camp,
The Ohio State University, Center for Human
1983). Often such tracking occurred by sex and race
Resource Research. (2002). NLSY97 user’s guide: A
and served to reinforce cultural, social, and
guide to rounds 1-4 data in the National
economic barriers evident in adult life (see, e.g., an
Longitudinal Surveys of Youth 1997. Columbus,
interesting table provided by Ryan (1998) that
Ohio: Author.
shows curriculum tracking by race at Cleveland,
Ohio’s East Technical High School in the 1930s.).
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
We are not suggesting that our findings reveal a
(2002). The National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth
pattern of discriminatory curriculum tracking.
1997, round 4 [Data file]. Available from Bureau of
Rather, we believe that methodologies and
Labor Statistics web site, http://www.bls.gov/nls
approaches used to study curriculum tracking might
provide fruitful in the analysis of variation in
participation in school–based learning for career
skills.