Previous Next Title Page Contents Crain, R. L., Allen, A., Thaler, R., Sullivan, D., Zellman, G., Little, J. W., and Quigley, D. D. (1999). The Effects of Academic Career Magnet Education on High Schools and Their Graduates (MDS-779). Berkeley: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, University of California.

CHAPTER  6
Placing the School-to-Work Transition in the Context of Adolescent Development

Anna Allen

      In response to the profound ongoing changes in the U.S. economy, analysts and researchers have challenged traditional methods of preparing secondary students for the workforce (Berryman & Bailey, 1992; SCANS, 1991). Traditionally, secondary students have been taught job-specific skills or prepared for college. Now, secondary schools are called upon to teach every student "generic work-related skills" so that the entire workforce will be able to participate in an economy that is increasingly technological, information-based, and fast-changing. One of the earliest national efforts to define these generic work-related skills was produced by the Secretary of Labor's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) in 1991. In this report, SCANS identified five competencies and a three-part foundation that constitute workplace know-how:

Workplace Competencies Foundation Skills

Though ways of thinking and organizing and interpersonal interactions are commonly defined as skills, this shorthand presents problems when educators try to teach these competencies as skills in secondary schools. When students learn to type, they begin a new activity with which they have little or no experience. They do not have to unlearn one method of typing in order to learn a new method. On the other hand, students have already established ways of interacting with other people, well-developed habits of mind, and particular ways of using resources like time or money by the time they enter high school. For each individual student, these competencies are the result of a particular personal history. Students have different conditions, events, people, and expectations that they must assimilate and to which they must respond and adapt. They also have different kinds of resources and opportunities. The result is that every high school student has a lifetime of habits of mind, beliefs, and attitudes that are adaptive to his or her own particular environment. These adaptations, however, may not be adaptive to a high-performance workplace or even to a high-performance secondary school. In other words, students are not blank slates, as John Dewey reminded us.

      Yet, students still need to acquire the "workplace know-how" as described by SCANS. If we think of the SCANS competencies as skills, we invite failure with those students whose family and community situations have neither expected nor supported the styles of thinking and learning or the kinds of interpersonal interactions identified by SCANS. These students have already developed a particular way of relating to others and handling information and resources. What can high schools, charged to prepare students to "work smarter," do to assist students to develop workplace know-how that is markedly different from their own ways of interacting with their physical and human environments?

      Most high schools try to do this by providing appropriate information about what students will need to enter college or the workplace. Information is critically important, but learning situations that require active participation and that provide the necessary resources may be a more efficient kind of support. For example, graduates in our study frequently mentioned advice from a teacher to "look the interviewer in the eye" when being interviewed for a job. This is important information, but what about all the other behavioral indications of self-confidence during the interview? If the young person does not feel confidence in him- or herself, that lack of confidence will communicate itself to the interviewer in other ways.

      A more comprehensive approach is to reframe preparing students for the workforce within the context of adolescent identity development and identify those contextual variables that require and support identity formation. Primary emphasis then shifts from a focus on a long list of skills to the whole person. Emphasis also shifts from classroom instruction to the creation of complex situations that require and support students' adaptation to an environment similar to what they will encounter in a high-performance workplace.

      Erik Erikson (1959) provided the earliest psychosocial definition of identity: a stable, consistent, and reliable sense of who one is and what one stands for in the world. It is also described as a sense of continuity with the past and a direction for the future (Marcia, 1993). As conceptualized by Erikson and Marcia, identity is an internal psychosocial construct that allows investigators to explain individual constancy and change, the way a person is experienced as the same to self and others over time while continuously adapting to constantly changing environments. Identity is a bridge between the core person and the context.

      Adolescence is the period of time during the life span when identity is first formulated and the initial testing of individual identity begins. Identity is reformulated as an adaptation to context and internal changes throughout a person's lifetime, but initial identity formation occurs during adolescence because all of the factors that go into forming an identity are not present until adolescence (e.g., the ability to reason beyond the concrete operational level). Although achieving an identity is widely recognized as the primary developmental task of adolescence, there has been little empirical investigation of the relationship between contextual variables and the process of identity formation during adolescence (Kroger & Green, 1996).

      Building on Erikson's legacy, James Marcia (1993) recognized that young people tend to form an inner sense of identity in different ways. Erikson suggested that identity formation "happens" in the normal course of development, but Marcia calls this a conferred identity. Marcia contrasts Erikson's conferred identity with constructed identity, in which an individual begins to make decisions about the person he or she wants to be, what beliefs to adopt, what interpersonal values to espouse, and what occupational direction to pursue. Individuals who retain a conferred identity are referred to as being in the Foreclosed status, while those who construct an identity are referred to as being in the Identity Achieved status. Those who do not seem to have a firm identity are identified as being in the Diffused status. The Moratorium status describes individuals who are in transition from no sense of identity or from a conferred to a constructed identity. Both the Foreclosed and the Identity Achieved persons have a sense of inner coherence, but only the Identity Achieved individual actually initiates and directs the process of constructing an identity.

      Two crucial processes underlie identity formation during adolescence: (1) exploration and (2) commitment. Those in the Moratorium status explore, but make no active commitments. Diffused individuals initiate no real exploration nor make firm commitments. Individuals who make a firm commitment without actively exploring are Foreclosed. Identity Achieved individuals actively explore their options and make firm commitments (Marcia, 1993). Exploration includes both exploration of oneself and the external environment. Commitment refers to making a choice that is not easily swayed and then acting on it.

      Marcia's (1993) conceptualization of identity status has generated research demonstrating the positive nature of the Identity Achieved status. Several studies have found strong correlations between Identity Achieved individuals and the attributes and competencies that underlie descriptions of "skills" needed by future workers. The following are some of the studies reviewed by Alan S. Waterman (1992) in his chapter about adolescent identity formation: Positive correlations between strong identity achievement and formal operational thought were reported by Leadbetter and Dionne (1981), Rowe and Marcia (1980), and others. Null results were found by Afrifah (1980) and Berzonsky, Weiner, and Raphael (1975). Rothman (1984) observed that individuals with identity commitments were more goal-directed than those who were identity diffused. Waterman and Waterman (1974) found that males who had achieved strong identities were less impulsive and more reflective than their more diffused counterparts. Several investigators found positive relationships between identity functioning and Kohlberg's levels of moral reasoning (Hult, 1979; Leiper, 1981; Podd, 1972; Poppen, 1974; Rowe & Marcia, 1980). Only Cauble (1976) did not find a relationship. Many studies have also linked identity achievement and positive self-esteem and identity diffusion with negative self-esteem (e.g., Adams & Shea, 1979; Breuer, 1973; Marcia & Friedman, 1970). A few studies did not find a relationship (Fannin, 1979; Marcia, 1967). An internal locus of control was linked with a strong sense of personal identity by Adams and Shea (1979), Dellas and Jernigan (1990), and others. Based on Marcia's and Erikson's work and the studies formerly mentioned, Waterman (1992) suggests that identity achievement is related to optimal psychological functioning. The commissions' and studies' descriptions of "smarter workers" are, in effect, describing people who function optimally: that is, workers who are flexible, self-directed, responsible, and problem-solving; who are interested in learning more and attending to what needs to be done; and who care enough to do it well--Identity Achieved individuals.

      Although Erikson's theoretical legacy stresses the dynamic interaction and adaptation between individual and context, his ideas had to be operationalized before empirical investigation could proceed productively. Tracing the antecedents of identity achievement, however, is still in its infancy. Most studies have traced the effect of family style or early attachment to significant others to later identity status. Few studies, however, have addressed the ways in which a secondary education could support adolescent identity development. This is especially important in instances in which the family or community does not provide the necessary conditions and support for identity formation.

      What secondary educational content and form offers the most promise for supporting adolescent identity achievement? Since finding an occupational direction is a key developmental task of paramount importance during adolescence, we looked at how an academic career-focused education might affect identity formation. Traditionally, secondary schools provide either specific vocational training or college preparation. Questions of equity led the schools in this study to try a new approach--an academic career-focused education that simultaneously prepares students for college and introduces them to a career field.

      Working from the assumption that an environment that expects and supports identity formation will facilitate adolescent identity achievement, we constructed the following hypothesis: An academic career-focused secondary educational experience facilitates adolescent identity achievement by providing the following support for exploration and commitment:

1.A Community of Practice: peers, teaching staff, and counselors who recognize and encourage the young person's exploration and commitment process.
2.Sustained, Caring Relationships with Adults: these provide socio-emotional support and a sense of security necessary for exploration and commitment.
3.Immersion in a Particular Occupation: this supports experiential exploration in at least three important ways: (1) students gain a better understanding of their own needs and abilities, (2) they obtain a realistic knowledge about their chosen occupational direction, and (3) they enjoy the challenge of exploring something "different" from the usual school curriculum.
4.Opportunities To Acquire Job-Specific Skills: these opportunities increase students' self-efficacy and economic viability as adults in their own eyes.
5.School-Supervised Work Experience: this provides complex situations which require students to exhibit skills, values, dress, language, and attitudes appropriate for the workplace and the adult world. It is also an opportunity to contribute in a meaningful way.

      These five contextual factors listed above are associated with positive educational outcomes scattered throughout the literature. In the educational literature, qualitative studies (Lightfoot, 1983; Metz, 1986; Peshkin, 1986; Sizer, 1984) suggest that "schools with a `sense of community' have a positive effect on teaching and learning" (Bryk & Driscoll, 1988). Studies of Catholic schools led some researchers to argue that when a school is organized as a community it can have a significant effect on the nature of human interactions within the school, which in turn positively affects a school's academic mission (Bryk, Lee, & Holland, 1993).

      In the identity development literature, feminist critique focused attention on the importance of social context to identity formation. Prior writing emphasized doing, agency, self-awareness, mastery, values, and abstract commitment (Josselson, 1994), but feminists asserted that in order to explore, people need the security of connectedness. Exploration and commitment are, thus, greatly facilitated when a person feels the security of belonging.

      Bandura (1977) defined self-efficacy as "the conviction that one can successfully execute behavior required to produce the outcomes" (p. 193). If individuals believe that they can generate responses that will result in positive outcomes, then they will perceive problems as challenges. In other words, students who believe that they can control school success and failure, that effort is important, and that they can exert it, are more likely to be engaged in school (Skinner, 1992). Motivational needs theorists Connell and Wellborn (1991) argue that social context is crucial in creating experiences of perceived control.

      Recent studies suggest that complex environments are associated with the development of "higher order" competencies (Bronfenbrenner, 1986; Tulkin & Kagan, 1972). For these theorists, the interplay between the characteristics of the developing person and the environmental systems in which the person participates determines outcomes.


The Current Study

      Interview questions relating to identity definition followed the format and content of Marcia's Identity Status Interview: Early and Middle Adolescence (Archer & Waterman, 1993) and the Identity Status Interview: Late Adolescence College Form (Marcia & Archer, 1993). Not all respondents were attending college at the time of the interview.

      Respondents were asked to trace their occupational interest from the moment they first became aware of it to the time of the interview. Special attention was given to actions taken to implement plans and goals. In addition, interviewers asked respondents to talk about their occupational choices, requesting specific information such as education and entry requirements, advancement opportunities, salary, and responsibilities. The graduates were asked to identify influential people and experiences and what meaning they had for the graduate. Respondents were asked to project themselves into the future and describe themselves actually working in their chosen field. In addition to career development, interviewers focused on interpersonal relationships, self-efficacy, problem solving, and ethnic identity.

      The author reviewed and reanalyzed each case to determine the career identity status based on the scoring criteria established by Marcia and Archer (1993, pp. 205-240) for vocational identity. The scoring criteria are specific to late adolescents, aged 18-22, and are intended to reflect the underlying processes of identity formation: "The assumption is that genuine exploration of personally meaningful alternatives followed by selection of a general direction for one's interests and abilities is the basic indicator of identity formation" (p. 205). When the resultant identity is no longer adaptive, the person will enter another exploratory period to be followed by a new commitment. The presence, absence, and degree of exploration and commitment comprise the primary scoring considerations.

Exploration
      The first dimension of the scoring system is the student's success in the exploration phase of career choice. It has two components.

Commitment
      The second dimension in the scoring criteria is commitment, in which knowledgability and activity revolve around a chosen occupational direction.

The scoring criteria were applied as rigorously as possible, and no status was determined based on a single criterion. Global identity status is reflected in several domains: vocational, ideological, relationship, sex-role values, and religion. Identity may proceed at different rates across the various domains. For example, one may demonstrate an achieved identity in the vocational domain, but not in the religious domain. Marcia and Archer (1993) assign a global identity status based on how identity is resolved in the majority of the domains (i.e. Achievement, Foreclosure, Diffusion, or Moratorium). They warn of the limitation of relying on vocational identity to establish global identity because of differential economic constraints and opportunities experienced by those in a sample. This study uses resolution of the vocational identity to indicate global identity; however, the respondents in the subsample are matched on all significant variables, including the availability of financial resources. In addition, the six hours of interviews and the self-esteem and locus of control instruments offer insights from other domains that were considered in the final determination of status. Moreover, most observers believe that choosing an occupational direction is the major developmental task of adolescence.

Results of the Initial Interview
      Not surprisingly, all of the students were quite similar on most variables, making significant findings all the more interesting. Analysis of the two-hour interview revealed significant positive outcomes among the career magnet graduates for school engagement, lifestyle choices (drugs, alcohol, and pregnancy), earned college credits, and parental support for college. There was no significant difference in the number of months employed post high school even though the career magnet graduates reported earning significantly more college credits.

      The original design of the study was to compare experiences and outcomes for graduates of academic career-focused schools with graduates of traditional comprehensive schools. Unfortunately, prior to the initial interview, there was no way to identify graduates of comprehensive high schools who had attended career magnet programs within their schools. This factor has complicated the results, sometimes weakening effects, but it also offers interesting insights into the effects of stand-alone career magnets versus career magnet programs within comprehensive schools. A great many results were close to significance and, taken together, deepen the support for reported results.

Career Magnet Graduates (Stand-Alone) . . .

      Graduates of career magnets and comprehensive high schools were equally committed to further education; 80% of each group started college classes; however, the graduates of the career magnets and career magnet programs within the comprehensive high schools report striking differences in how they perceive their success in college.

Career Magnet Graduates (Stand-Alone and Comprehensive Career Magnet Programs) . . .

      The findings from the semistructured, two-hour interview--that an academic career-focused education produces positive effects in school engagement, peer groups, lifestyle choices, parental support for college, career choice, parental support for college, and college credits earned--may seem diverse. They begin to suggest a pattern, however, if we place them within the context of normal adolescent development and supplement these findings with data from the life history interviews.


Results from the Subsample's Life History Interviews

Identity Status
      Nineteen percent of the subsample of 26 students are classified as Identity Achieved. Thirty-eight percent (five students) of the career magnet sample are Identity Achieved or Moratorium compared to 15% of the comprehensive graduates (Table 6.1). Of the two respondents from the comprehensive schools who are classified as Identity Achieved, one graduated from a career magnet program within the comprehensive school; the other had an internship with a Wall Street investment bank every summer for five years which was obtained through a friend of a friend of his mother.

      This section begins with an examination of excerpts from interviews with two matched pairs to illustrate characteristics of identity status classification in this sample. We then examine the patterns of support or lack of support for identity achievement from the graduates' point of view.

      Almost all of the respondents expressed a strong interest in popular and rap music and most, especially males, dreamed about having some role in the production of music or owning a music club at some time in their lives. Many give "music" as their chosen occupational direction. The following excerpts from one interview of the first matched pair give a flavor of the exploration and commitment process characteristic of this group. JJ is the third child of a two-parent family. He is an African-American male and a comprehensive school graduate.

Exploration
JJ: Since I was little, I was always into music. I listened to the radio and it wouldn't matter what station you'd flip to. Any station I'd tell you . . . I'd tell you. . . so and so, yeah . . . 1987, 1988. I always had a knack for that. They always saying, why don't you go into music.
I:Who said that?
JJ:Like my cousin, he said, "Why don't you go into music?"
I:And how did you get interested in music as a business?
JJ:I listened to the radio, and lookin' at radios and stuff, and I know a lot of people who have talent, as in, you know a lot of talent, good talent, better than the ones I see on TV. And I think I could take these people somewhere, with the right training, if I get trained right, I could make some money out of this . . . I wanna open clubs, too. See now that's profitable. . . . My sister, she listened to R&B, she'd listen to . . . pop, she'd listen to, you know, different types of music. And I grew up into that. And I got a, I caught an ear for different music. Like I can listen to a song once and tell you, I can tell you if it's gonna hit. Or if it's gonna flop.
I:Who did you talk with about your ideas for future work?
JJ:Dave, my cousin Dave.
I:And if this career doesn't work out?
JJ:That's why I want to go in all aspects of it, cause say I'm producing, say I don't do all that well in producing, say it didn't work for me. I could always fall back on broadcasting. That doesn't work, I can fall back on engineering, fall back, that's something I wanna fall back or something so I'm in there somewhere. If not doing all I want to be, doing one definitely.
I:What about yourself has made it easier to move towards your goal?
JJ:Myself? Like my character? Like, with me, I like too much nice things. There's too much things out there I see that I like, and I want to spoil myself. I promise myself I'm gonna spoil myself, and take, if I gotta work and work and work to get the things I want, I'm gonna do it. Like . . . say I wanna pair of boots, right? Or a pair of shoes or a shirt or something like that and it costs X amount of dollars; it costs a lot. I'm a say, I'm gonna get it, I'm a go for it, I only live once, I'm gonna go for it. Why settle for less when I can get better? That's how I look at a lot of things.
I:What about your character has made it harder to get to your goal?
JJ:Sometime I get lazy. Sometimes. . . . And I'm lazy, you know. . . . Like I had a chance to . . . deejay in this club, and all I had to do was send in an audition tape, and I'm lazy--I never did it. Missed my chance . . . . I'm a get mines though; I'm not that lazy. (Laugh)
I: What are your plans for the future?
JJ:I see me still gettin' a degree. It's a two year school, so getting an associate's from there, plus all right, doin' my music. But mostly, I see like, college that's actually something to fall back on. Just in case the music stuff don't work, which I think it will. I gotta think positive. That's another thing to fall back on. But I don't want to fall back till I'm at Mickey-Dees where I've got anything like that, not that there's anything wrong, but that's just not me. . . . Well I always said that I didn't want to be poor. I want to go to college. I always used to say that. I've seen it on TV and stuff? That's what I want to be. . . . I want to get into music, that's my first love. It is music and me doin' parties all that. I wanna produce too, cause . . . I gots to know a lot a like artists that's on the street, singers, rappers. I want to produce them. That's why I'm gonna go to school and take up studio, learn tracks, and lay down tracks of my own.
I: How strongly do you feel about your plans?
JJ:How strongly do I feel? Let's put it like this. In like seven years, when you see me on the Grammy's, you see me and you say, "yeah whatever." You'll see, I'm going all the way with this.
I: And what kind of job would you most like to have right now?
JJ:I like the . . . studio, get more in touch with the studio. I plan to do that this summer. I plan to get more into my music. Instruments and everything.
I:And which would you most like to do right now, `cause you described like four or five?
JJ:Most right now, Deejaying.
I:That's what you'd most like to do right now?
JJ:I want to go on the club level where I get like $500 every week. $500 every week. Every night I say, "What am I talking about every week?"
I:And where did you learn that this is what you wanted to do?
JJ:This what I wanted? Seeing like, going to the clubs, you know seeing them deejays. How well they do; how much clubs they play. `Cause sometimes a deejay can play in two clubs a night. That's a thousand dollars, so that could be any where from five hundred to a thousand I make, maybe more. If you do that Friday and Saturday, whew, that's money. You don't get taxed. It's on the side.

      JJ demonstrates the breezy off-handedness of the Diffused Identity status. He has not considered any alternative other than something that he did as a pastime while growing up. His knowledge of what a music producer does is primarily limited to what he has learned from going to clubs as a patron or what he has learned through the mass media. He could provide few specifics about music as a career. In other passages not quoted, he is unable to articulate his own abilities or skills. Although he is strongly committed verbally, he has taken little action to implement his occupational goals. When opportunities to advance his knowledge of the music business have come his way, he has not taken advantage of them. He has earned twelve credits in one year of college, while working in a retail store part-time. He reports making mostly "C"s in college and has not declared a major.

      JJ's counterpart is CK, the only child of a two-parent African-American family. He graduated from a health career magnet majoring in dental lab technology, which he rejected as a career direction after exploring it in high school.

I:When did you think about being a pediatrician?
CK:Oh that was around the same time as dental. I knew it was something, I . . . feel I'm born to do something in the medical field. I've always felt like that. Something I had to do. I didn't know whether it was dental or pediatrics or anything like that. But I knew it was in the medical field `cause I've tried manual labor. Manual labor is not for me. I'm just a girl at heart or something. I don't know. I don't wanna be lifting.
I:So what appeals to you about being a pediatrician though?
CK:Everything. The whole thing. Coming in contact with kids. I love kids, you know. I like, you know, like when my friends, when we used to play ball and stuff and they'd get hurt, I'm the one who's patching them up and fixing them up and stuff. When like, even now when my boy twist his ankle, I was just fixing it up for them. When I twist my ankle you know, I fix myself up. I knew how long, I felt, I felt I knew how long it was I should rest my ankle. You know, what kind of activities I felt I should be doing. How to strengthen it, you know. I just, I was always fascinated by it. Even when I watched TV, I watched [channel] 13. I was watching like open heart surgery and stuff like that. I'm just fascinated by this sort of thing.
I:So where did you come up with the notion that you can do anything if you just put your mind to it?
CK:My parents because they always say if they had the opportunity that I had, they'd be doctors. They both tell me that "I'd be a doctor" because they said they didn't have the opportunity that I have today. They had to settle . . . because they were not allowed to do what they really wanted to. They in the south. They had to work . . . because like there was a lot of them, so they had to support each other, you know what I'm saying.
I:So what if you find out, what if you don't do as well in science as you want to do?
CK:Then I'll work at it harder. Take tutoring. There's other things that I'll [do]; I'll read more. I'll study more because this is something that I feel I have to do. I don't wanna, like I said, I don't wanna do manual labor, man. I cannot .. . do it. Like every morning, I see these people on the train; they look dead. They look like zombies. You know they're doing something they don't really wanna do. You know it's like walking in a cemetery on the train. I always say that to myself. I can't do this. If you look at some of the faces, look in their eyes, they're dead, they're hollow. I don't wanna be like. I wanna be like [grins] you know what I'm saying.
I:So I guess what I was asking is are you more motivated by your interest in the field or by . . .
CK:the manual labor side?
I:By the fact that you're not interested in that?
CK:Right. That's what motivates me and drives me.
I:That more so than the interest in the field?
CK:Right.

      This interview is challenging to score because there are indications of exploration and commitment, especially in interpersonal relationships. Although CK seems to be moving toward achievement, three things in this excerpt indicate a scoring of Foreclosure: (1) he seems to be living out his parents' frustrated desire to be doctors; (2) he has not seriously considered alternatives outside direct health care; and (3) he repeatedly indicates that he feels that medicine is "something that I feel I have to do." He acknowledges that his primary motivation is fear of having to work as a manual laborer rather than an intrinsic interest in medicine. Like other Foreclosed individuals, CK is active in pursuit of his choice. He reports earning 40 college credits and plans to transfer next semester to major in pre-med.

      The following matched pair is composed of two Latino males who applied to the same career magnet as eighth graders. Although they both demonstrate Identity Achievement, their exploratory paths are quite different and reflect many of the differences between an academic career-focused education and a traditional approach.

      MJ, the only child of a single mother, got off to a rocky start at a stand-alone career magnet because he continued his delinquent behavior from junior high school and cut school so frequently in the ninth grade that he was still a freshman the following year. His mother was hurt and angry, and he felt disappointed in himself.

Exploration
I:What were your thoughts about your future (in the tenth grade)?
MJ:About my future . . . well, accounting sucked. I thought it was boring. I thought when I was in junior high school, I was like, "I'm gonna major in accounting, that's gonna be my life. I'm gonna take accounting in high school and college, [and] get a job." Then in high school, I found out more about accounting. And I didn't like it, so I had to change my major. And then I got into Clerical Procedures, which is like business oriented, so I was like, "that's cool."
I:What made you decide on Clerical Procedures?
MJ:Um, everything else I didn't like. I don't . . . remember the other majors. For some reason, I didn't like the other ones. So I got into Clerical Procedures `cause I always liked business. So like that's the main thing in business, you know, clerical procedures, business law, business management, business English. You know what I'm saying? Like stuff like that.
I:What did you think about your future work?
MJ:My future work? I know Clerical Procedures wasn't like a major in college. Ha! So I had to think about what in business I wanted to do. So then like Ms. W., she was cool about it, `cause she let us know about all the stuff we could do in business . . . the stuff she taught us, we can apply. So, she gave us like a big outline of all this stuff we can do. And I was like, "oh, that's cool." And then one time she encouraged us to go to . . . the employment office downtown `cause they had like some computer thing that if you type in all the stuff that you know, all your skills, all your abilities and your personality, it will give you a list of . . . all the careers you can go into. And she encouraged us to do that, and I did that. And . . . that's how I found the major that I'm in now, which is Hotel Management.
I:When did you start to become interested in hotel management?
MJ:Hotel management was like one of the majors that I chose because of my personality. I'm a person that likes to make people feel comfortable and, you know, help people out any time I can. . . . [A]nd at the same time . . . I want to make money, you know. I chose hotel `cause I mean it does all that . . . a hotel . .. it's like hospitality. You make people feel comfortable. You try to help them out. You know, like whenever they need something in a room or something like that, you're constantly helping people. That's what I like to do. Social work, you can do the same thing, but then again . . . it's not that much money in social work. I figured if I could do that in a hotel and make the money that .. . I want to make, I can also go beyond my job and do something in the community . . . myself. I don't need my job to do that for me.
I:What do you mean go beyond and do. . . ?
MJ:Like, you know, like outside of work. I'll have my job, help people out, you know, in the hotel but that's my job. I'm doing it because I want to get paid. But then I can go beyond into my community and start up like a youth program or help out with the youth program or . . . coordinate something for like the young kids or you fix something up, you know, like a building that needs to be renovated. You know, help out that way. You know, that's not related to my job. I can do that also.
I:So, but I'm still trying to see if I can understand why hotel management?
MJ:Why hotel management?
I:And not something else? I mean, great this computer helped you out, but suppose the computer's wrong? Why still hotel management?
MJ:Well, at first it was the money and the fact that I like to help people out. Right, that fell into place. That made me choose it as a major in college. . . . So I said, well, I'll take it in college and then when I was taking it in college, I found out more about it. As I took those classes, I found out that it's something that interests me even more `cause when you in class, they . . . detail it out for you. What parts of the hotel they are, you know, where you can do it. And, as I found out about it, I became more interested in it. I figured I wanted to do that.

      MJ's exploration was somewhat constrained by being in a business-focused high school, and his current choice, hotel management, is still in the business field. Yet MJ's exploration process reflects identity achievement, because he seriously considered an alternative, accounting, and he initiated a search for an occupation that meshed with his needs and abilities. He weighed it against other possibilities such as social work, set realistic goals, and is implementing his plans effectively. Once he decided to pursue hotel management, he found a community college with that program, acquired a work-study job, made "A"s and "B"s, finished his internship, and will soon graduate with an associate's degree in hotel management. He likes his choice even better after further exploration. MJ's commitment to hotel management is congruent with his activities since graduation from high school and with his future plans. After acquiring an associate's degree, he plans to transfer to a four-year college to major in Human Resources to give himself more occupational flexibility. The following remark by MJ illustrates attitudes for which any employer would be grateful: "As a person, I always do more than I really have to do, you know. I always think about not just myself, but who I work for. How can I make the environment better for myself and people around me?"

      MJ's counterpart is BC, who was not selected by the lottery process to attend the career magnet and instead went to a small, elite high school. As a junior, he transferred to a large comprehensive high school after his family moved to a suburban area. When BC was in junior high school, his foster father died. BC was reluctant to talk with his foster mother about anything because he thought she was too preoccupied with grief about her husband and worry over BC's older sister who "was going nuts." BC was acting-out at school, even before his father died. Quotations have been combined to give the flavor of BC's exploration and commitment process:

BC:I guess, I--something always did bother me, but I could never put my finger on it. I look back now and . . . I think it was just lack of ambition, you know, lack of determination. Like I just didn't know what I wanted to do, and I think that--that was important `cause like as the years went on, that grew. It grew a lot. . . . I figured in college I'd find something . . . . And if worse came to worse, I could always graduate and go into business, that was like my--my safety. I didn't like it all that much, you know, but it looked like you could make a lot of money. . . . I mean, at that age, it's just like money's everything. . . . I would just ask people a lot about careers. Even those guys I worked with in the upholstery shop. . . . they didn't know much about careers, but anything they said, I would listen to. So I just tried to take it all in, and I figured I'd make a decision when I'm in college, when I'd learned a lot about it. . . . When I was a freshman (Cornell), I thought about law a lot more `cause my school was more inclined towards law. I'm in the school of industrial labor relations. I was thinking about like civil rights law or criminal. So, a prosecutor and stuff . . . and that's what I was gearing towards, but then I found out--I mean I took a--like a class in labor law, and I took a couple of other classes related to law and I was just like, law is bullshit. You know, too much red tape, too--I couldn't put up with stuff like that. So I didn't know what I wanted to do; it just like gave me more questions then. All right, so you did that, now what else is there? . . . It's the most boring, dry material that you can ever take. I took like labor history, labor law, statistics. All of that, you know, like stuff that I would never use again. And stuff that I really had no interest in. . . . And once I was here, I just hated the material they taught me. And we had writing--writing courses . .. And I liked those, and I did well in those, but those were the only ones. Everything else I didn't do so hot. (His younger brother was seriously ill the following summer.)
BC:After my freshman year . . . he had pneumonia and . . . I don't know, he--he was really close to death, you know. My--my youngest brother Charlie, and he was eight years old. I mean, that had a really big effect on me `cause we were close, and . . . it affected my mother too . . . . all throughout the summer .. . my mother was in the hospital everyday and I would come home from work and take care of my brothers and my little sister. I think that brought my family a lot closer together too. I felt like helpless `cause there was nothing I could do, you know? So I thought I'd . . . I'd look into being a doctor, to medicine. But, you know, like I actually--I actually saw the value of being a doctor . .. maybe if I was a doctor, I could do something. Or if I couldn't, you know, cure them I could help treat them. Something. I felt so helpless; all I could do was like see him, hold his hand, you know? And that wasn't doing enough. I mean, you know, it would make him happy; I just wanted to do something. So I came back to school . . . I took a course in chemistry, that's one of the pre-med requirements. And I was like, "all right, you know, I can do this." I hate science, but I was like "I can do this, no problem." I did pretty well, I mean ever since then, that's what it's always been. And I mean--you know, I liked--I like the idea of being a doctor too. I liked helping people . . . it was never about like money or anything like that, just I had a chance to help them.
I:Who helped you make that decision? You said the experience with your brother?
BC:Yeah, I think that was it. . . . After that I started to ask my doctor and tell him straight, "Well, what's it like being a doctor?" . . . . I went to the (college) office, and I was like . . . "What are the requirements to go to medical school?" I looked into it myself.
I:Thinking back to the time when you decided on that career, what information did you have about that occupation, what kinds of occupations or options?
BC:Well, I guess that law was the other option that was really considered, and I wasn't really too happy with that. . . . I just liked it in principle, but not the work itself. Being a doctor, I wasn't too familiar with it, but I mean, I saw what they did. I mean, I saw what a couple of them did to my brother, you know, how they treated other patients. And I was like, "I could do this," I wanted to do it. I saw myself doing it . . . .

      BC articulated commitment characteristic of an Identity Achieved status. He said that his commitment to being a doctor is "real strong. . . . Like I've never been intrinsically motivated as I am now, as much as I am now." His behavior since his decision is consistent with a strong commitment. He took a difficult science course to make sure that he could handle it and expended considerable effort to get a work-study position in a research lab. So far, he has not been successful, as the competition is stiff and positions are usually awarded to upperclassmen. He has decided to volunteer in a lab and has talked with professors and teaching assistants to set something up. His grades are congruent with his goals. He acknowledges the possibility of change but is confident that he will achieve his goal. BC has measured and weighed the consequences of his choice and recognizes the fierce competition to get into medical school. He is also aware of what he must do in order to be successful: "Learn how to work hard academically .. . like my study habits have been getting better here." Becoming a doctor is the most important thing in his life.

Career-Focused Educational Support for Adolescent Identity Development
      The academic career-focused schools in this study included two business-oriented schools, one health-related school, and one high school that had a mixture of unrelated career fields--aviation, computer science, communications, and law. The career magnet that tried to incorporate unrelated fields was the least successful academic career-focused school, based on the semistructured interview and the life history interviews. If this school had not been included in the statistical analysis, the differences between comprehensive and academic career-focused graduate outcomes would have been considerably larger. We kept this career magnet in the sample primarily to obtain an adequate sample size.

Community of Practice
      A particular occupational field or direction serves as the context and organizing principle for an academic career-focused school. We found that this academic career focus was the most important aspect of their educational experience to most of the graduates of the academic career-focused schools. In the initial, semistructured interview, graduates of academic career-focused schools reported cutting classes significantly less often than comprehensive school graduates. Occupational classes were named as the classes career magnet graduates were least likely to cut. Other variables support this picture of occupational programs engaging students in school. When asked why they would choose the same school if they could do it over again, career magnet graduates most frequently mentioned their occupational programs as the reason; whereas the most frequent reason given by comprehensive graduates was convenience. Two of the academic career-focused school graduates volunteered that they would choose their same high school because teachers and students worked together for a common purpose in their school. Awareness of a common purpose did not arise from any comprehensive school graduate.

      The community of practice evolves from the organizational structure of the academic career-focused school and its unique mission of simultaneous preparation for work and college. To graduate, students are required to take a minimum of credits in their chosen occupational field; they spend several hours each week during their last two years in high school learning about a field that interested them. The occupational field becomes the axis around which learning, conversation, and other activities occur. Students usually travel as a cohort from class to class, especially for their occupational classes. Most occupational classes also utilize some form of block scheduling, which offers opportunities for in-depth exploration of content. In addition, students are more likely to have a teacher more than once in an academic career-focused school because of the occupational concentration. Finally, they are required to complete some kind of internship in the academic career-focused schools, which ideally expands their community of practice to include the adult world of work outside of school. To qualify for the internships, students were required to maintain a certain grade average. Both graduates and teachers complained that not enough internships were available, so many students served internships within their own high schools.

      The career orientation focuses student attention on their future occupational interests. Graduates from the Health Careers magnet recalled seeing "a lot of professional people in the school." Many students mentioned the importance of being able to talk informally on a daily basis with adults who had actually worked in the field to which they aspired. In contrast to graduates of comprehensive schools, graduates from academic career-focused schools volunteered that they talked with other students at their school on subway platforms and out of class about their occupational programs, internships, and career interests. Graduates also remarked that students dressed as if they were employed in business at academic career-focused schools. This is in contrast to one of the comprehensive schools in which the principal mandated that students had to "dress for success" certain days of the week. What the academic career-focused schools accomplished through cultural expectations had to be accomplished by mandate at a comprehensive school.

Sustained-Caring Relationships with School Adults
      We asked graduates to identify the most influential adult at their schools and give us permission to interview that adult. We found that the influential adults at the academic career-focused schools were more familiar with the students who named them than their counterparts at comprehensive high schools. As a group, they could provide more specificity about their former students. We hypothesize that the adults at the academic career-focused schools had spent more time with their former students because most were teachers who taught occupational-related subjects and had had the graduate for more than one class. The following excerpts give the flavor of the relationships between the graduates and their occupational teachers:

HI:And the teachers were very caring. . . . secretary teachers, they were like my buddies.
UK:I guess if they (business teachers) wouldn't a been behind me, and I guess they gave me confidence in myself because they knew I could do it. And if they knew I could do it, then I . . . had no choice but to believe that I could do it also. So they kinda gave me a lot of confidence. So the conversations kinda meant a lot to me. Kinda of pushed me to the right direction.
MJ:She used to have fun like all the time with us. I had her like for four classes. Like she was like the main teacher for that major. You know, so I had her for four classes. I used to talk to her like all the time, like go to her office and talk to her, in class, talk to her. She was like a friend, teacher, counselor; she was everything to us you know. She was real cool. And she was black.
EV:.. . your nursing instructor. She became like your other mother. . . . That was just another mother. She still call me to this day. Another mother. She was always just looking out, and she sensed like when you had a problem; she'd just pick it up and she'd try to work on that, whatever.

      This last excerpt is especially significant because it was given by a graduate who described a particularly alienating and painful family life. She almost replicated her home experience during her first two years of high school. She was isolated and angry and cut school frequently until she entered the nursing program in the eleventh grade.

      When we asked for differences between occupational and academic teachers, the most frequent difference was that the occupational teachers cared. Many students said that the occupational teachers knew what they could do and expected them to work to their potential. At least two graduates remembered that "they would go out into the halls, and hunt you down" to make sure you attended the class. There was no difference in how approachable the two kinds of teachers were, nor did graduates report any significant difference between occupational and academic instructional methodology. The difference seems to arise out of the increased amount of time occupational teachers have with their students because they have the student for more than one class. This increases the opportunity for attachment and knowledge of one another.

Sustained-Caring Relationships with Peers
      Graduates of academic career-focused schools were significantly more likely to say that their close friends were from school rather than the neighborhood. Traveling as a cohort from the start of the eleventh grade supports the development of close relationships with peers who are studying for the same career field. Many of these graduates mentioned the encouragement they received from their cohort peers. For example, a young female graduate from a secretarial program said, "you start being around more with the kids that's within your major. And so then . . . that's like when I started to really get those relationships that last the rest of my high school time."

      Structured opportunities to bond with peers who are consciously preparing for a career assumes more significance in light of the common theme in the interviews of peers from the neighborhood who are "doing drugs, getting pregnant." Graduates talked about having to consciously sever relationships with former peers who were cutting school or not taking school seriously in order to meet the attendance and study time required by their academic career-focused programs.

Immersion in an Occupation
      A common theme for graduates who liked math as eighth graders was going into accounting and discovering that math does not really have a lot to do with accounting. Immersion in an occupation provided the graduates with an intensive look at career fields that interested them but about which they had little prior knowledge. In the process, they not only learned more about a particular career, but they also learned more about what they liked and did not like. Most graduates did not remain committed to the career that they studied in high school, but the experience provided direction to their exploration and active practice in the process of exploration and commitment. The following excerpt is from an Identity-Achieved female graduate of a Business magnet program within a comprehensive school; it illustrates the rich environment that supports the processes of exploration and commitment:

HM:In eleventh grade, counselors were starting to call you down [to] start talking to you about colleges and your career. Then, we had a lot of business-like different corporations, like different kind of people were coming in to talk to us. Like once a week we would have different kind of people. We even had the marine people there. We had the army people there. It's like we started doing mock interviews. In eleventh grade, we started really getting into business, all aspects of business. . . . we went on field trips. Me and a couple of girls, two other girls and guy had to go represent our school . . . corporation had sent for us to come for a luncheon, just to get an idea what's it like to work for an insurance company and different parts you could do in insurance. We went on a lot of fields. We went into courts, you know, like for court stenographers. . . . Eleventh grade was interesting . . . . Spent a lot of time in the library researching careers. . . . Greg shorthand. . . . was interesting, but I knew right then I didn't want to be a court stenographer or anything with shorthand like that.
I:Thinking back to the time you decided on a career, what information did you have about what kinds of occupations were options?
HM:At that time, I didn't know a lot. . . . I had to do a lot of research. I had to question, ask a lot of people. All I knew then [was] that I wanted to be in the business field. What part, I didn't know until I started talking with people.

      Another Identity-Achieved graduate describes an immersion experience in the workplace. His internship was a turning point in his attitude about himself and marked a significant change in his efforts at school. Notice the specificity with which he describes his activities, the pride he takes in what he did, and his response to the responsibility that he was given.

I:What did you think about yourself as a learner?
MJ:I learned; I was like a quick learner. . . . Like everything I learned in Wall Street, I only had like four weeks to work there. It was an internship. It was quick. So everything I had to learn the first week, so the next three weeks I had to apply it and be on my own. . . . I learned that I was a quick learner, like we was like in the Office of Investigations. Like we investigated anything that we thought was like suspicious like . . . people selling stocks and bonds. So we had to write a report why we thought it was suspicious. So they let me do that, too. I thought they only, like, only the people that work there really do it. So they taught us how to do. And in the next three weeks, I had to do it, too. So and they taught us how to use the computer. How to look up people's background, what kind of friends they have, what kind of work they have, what kind of people they know. How to use the computer and then how to put it into a computer chrono - chronologically. You know, how we found it, what day we found it, and the activities that we took down. So all that I had to use to make up a report. And I learned how to use it in one week. And [in] the three weeks, I did like four or five reports.

      In contrast, comprehensive high school graduates from public housing or low income neighborhoods who did not concentrate on a career field expressed frustration with their isolation from usable knowledge about occupational options as in the following excerpts:

I:What did you need in ninth grade?
BC:Just direction in general. . . . people would always talk to you, "What do you want to do, what do you want to do?" They would always present options, but I don't think anybody presented like realistic options. Maybe they . . . presented realistic options to me, if they saw I was doing well, and they're like "Oh, you can be anything you want, you can be a doctor or engineer." But that . . . wasn't realistic `cause there were no doctors or engineers in my neighborhood.. . . There were no doctors or engineers in my family . . . no lawyers--I didn't know anybody like that. And people just could not relate occupations to me; they were like "Oh, you can be anything you want to be." But I didn't have a lot of like interaction with these occupations that they were talking about, so I really didn't care for them. And I think that was another thing that was important, people finding a way to like help people with determination, but realistically. I think people have to find a way to set realistic goals for kids.

      The next excerpt is from an interview with a female comprehensive school graduate, whose exploration was limited. She was unwed and pregnant at the time of the interview.

HD:I feel like if I had been exposed to more things then I would've really been . .. able to know what it is I wanted to do. But when you don't have anything to choose from, it's hard. That's why I understand how some of these out here choose to be drug dealing. They don't know anything else . . . and then plus it's . . . bringing in fast money and they're . . . like, "Oh well, I guess this is what I'm supposed to be doing." This is the kind of life I'm in, you know. I live in the projects, you know. That's how it was . . . and it was really few, very few choices. No one . . . ever introduced us to anything else.. . . And to the way we used to talk in . . . school was . . . like doctors and lawyers and stuff. That was like the highest thing to do, and oh god you probably won't be it, so don't even try it. You know, it was like that, you know. And it was like I didn't have no real desire to be a doctor anyway or a lawyer or anything like that. It just didn't seem like something kids like us would do, you know. We . . . weren't told, oh this was like a really good profession or whatever. We weren't told anything like that. We had to just think of some things ourselves, you know.

      In contrast, academic career-focused programs immerse students in a career field; this immersion offers a direction for exploration and the specific, experiential information necessary for making a commitment. The freshness or novelty of occupational courses also encourages engagement and exploration. Graduates frequently mentioned their appreciation for learning something new and different. The following graduate expressed a common theme when comparing occupational to academic courses:

HI:Maybe till eleventh grade, but yeah it got to be the same to me. Social studies, I couldn't understand how they had people who, who taught social studies because they used to teach you the same thing all the time.
I:Oh, so that's what you mean, you had the same material?
HI:Yeah, it was like the same thing. Maybe they'll add a little something new, but it was just monotonous seeing it over and over again. But like the secretarial classes, you always learned something new. Like in, when we did stenography, we didn't do it at the same pace. They would take us even higher.

Opportunities To Acquire Job-Specific Skills
      The acquisition of useful job skills increases young people's sense of self-efficacy and economic viability. The graduates of career-focused programs are able to articulate the connection between what they were learning in school and its relationship to their future. We hypothesize that this awareness contributes to the lower frequency of cutting classes reported by academic career-focused graduates.

UK:I felt that (occupational classes) was more, a whole lot of important stuff. They (occupational teachers) was more stricter because they was preparing you for life.
HI:.. . people . . . say, "Oh you went to college to take up accounting. Don't you wish that you . . . went . . . for accounting instead of secretarial?" And I go, "No." I never regretted it because we gained skills that you can always use. You know, you can, you can use your secretarial skills to get through my accounting program.

      Other graduates expressed the same conviction. They did not regret concentrating on a particular career field even if they abandoned it as a career choice because they gained skills and knowledge that they would use as adults. One graduate felt that her accounting skills would protect her in the future from being cheated. Others felt that they could always get a job using the skills they had learned in high school.

      In contrast, students without an academic career-focused educational experience were less likely to see a connection between what they were learning in school and its relationship to their future. One comprehensive graduate stated that he did not accomplish much in high school because he did not have an occupational focus. Many graduates seemed to assume that they would just somehow almost magically acquire the needed maturity and skills required to find satisfying work. As students, their major goal was simply to graduate from high school. The following excerpt is from a comprehensive school graduate:

HD:I thought that as you got older . . . you got more mature and then you knew what it was that you wanted to do and then you had your tools to do it. You had the skills and everything by then and by the time I got . . . to the twelfth grade and I was graduating that I would just be accepted by all these different colleges and . . . everything would just fit in, and everything would go smoothly like it was supposed to. It didn't happen that way but . . . that's what I thought would happen by the time . . . I was in tenth grade first going into high school. I thought that was gonna happen. . . . like everybody just evolved into a good, intelligent, grown . . . well-spoken person once they finish high school. No and it's not true. . . . It's like, I don't know. It was like I felt real shaky about whatever I did learn in high school. You know, I didn't really feel like I knew anything.

      Another male comprehensive graduate expressed a lack of focused direction another way.

I:What was the most important thing that you experienced when you were in high school?
JJ:Nothing from that school really.
I:Looking back, did your high school help you towards your goal?
JJ:It gave me a diploma. That's a part of it. I needed that to get into college.
I:Would you say that was your major goal just to get into college?
JJ:Yeah, I need a diploma to get into college. . . . I still thought I was going to college . . . I just gotta get this high school junk out [of] the way. I didn't really think. Truthfully, the way I thought all them years, "high school not important, junior high not important, college is important. College is the one. . . for the money." Mostly, I just thought school was just a place to meet people. You know, instead of just staying in the house, it's a place to meet people and, you know, and the degree, to get a job.

      Graduating from high school is a great accomplishment for students from overwhelmed families beset with legacies of poverty, illness, addictions, violence, and discrimination. This was true for graduates from both types of schools, yet a greater proportion of graduates of academic career-focused programs were able to articulate a belief in their economic viability and specify what skills they gained from high school.

School-Supervised Work Experience
      Both school-supervised and non-school-supervised work experience for the interviewed graduates varied greatly in quality. Some of the best work experiences, however, were internships associated with the business- and health-focused schools. The following excerpt is not typical. It represents what is possible with school-supervised work experience and is related by a graduate of a business-focused school:

I: What was important to you about that job?
MJ: Important to me, like usually, like I expected the people at the job to be looking over me every time. Every time I came to work to be looking over me and be like, "do this, do that." But the first week, they did that cause they were teaching us how to do it. How to do the work. Then the next three weeks, we didn't get that. So that was important `cause I learned how to be independent. I learned how to even though I would have liked them to be there over me `cause I was nervous. Like it really mattered what I did, you know. But it taught me that I had to do things for myself. Like use the stuff that I learned and get it in my head so I could use it for myself. So it was important `cause I got to be like more independent and utilize everything that I learned real quick.


Discussion

      The life history interviews provide insight into how an academic career-focused educational structure supports the processes of exploration and commitment that underlie adolescent identity formation. The daily experience of students in school is as important as the instruction that they receive. When implemented well, the organization and structure of the academic career-focused school or program support a community of practice and offer complex new challenges that meaningfully engage students. The school-to-work program immerses students in preparing for and learning about something in which they had expressed interest. They bump up against expectations and realities in the world outside their homes and school in a nonconsumer role. The academic career focus implies an expectation of planfulness from the students and an expectation that the students will be active in pursuit of their commitments. In the process, the students learn more about themselves, particularly what they like and do not like to do in relation to future work. They also learn more about their own needs, values, and interests, which is critical information for guiding their future decisions. If they are lucky enough to be in a good program and get an internship, they also learn more about what the larger world is like and expects from them. Students can more easily picture themselves as part of that larger world if they have been actively engaged in it as participant producers, "seeing what it is really like." Their exploration and commitment during high school support differentiation from parents, while offering the security of still being part of a close-knit group.

      Is academic career focus just a motivational hook to keep students in school, or does it have intrinsic value? The results of this study indicate that academic career-focused education serves as more than merely a "hook" to engage students or a way to get students work-ready. School-to-work may be a particularly helpful avenue for practicing exploration and commitment because it is connected with the adult world and assists young people to work on a primary developmental task of adolescence--finding a life's work.

      Although the findings from this study yielded significant results, not all of the academic career-focused schools or career magnet programs within comprehensive schools were successful in their graduates' eyes. One of the four academic career-focused schools received many negative reviews. Even those who were positive about their particular occupational program were not very positive about the school as a whole. This school differed from the other academic career-focused schools because of its combination of unrelated career fields and an emphasis on curricular integration in, at most, only two programs. The graduates' primary criticisms of this school were uncaring, unknowledgable teachers and too much academic content in courses from which they expected more occupational information and skills. It is indicative of the strength of academic career-focused education that significant findings in outcomes between academic career-focused and comprehensive high schools were still obtained despite this school's inclusion.


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