The Vocational Education, Guidance and Placement of Negroes in the United States

Abstract

The school is definitely committed, in educational theory, to assume responsibility for promoting the adjustment of youth. Its function in this regard has been termed vocational guidance, which, broadly interpreted, comprehends the entire 'process of assisting the individual to choose an occupation, prepare for it, enter upon and progress in it.' How adequately is this guidance function being served for Negroes in the United States? What principles should guide its further development in the immediate future? These are the general questions with which this chapter deals. More specifically, it is the purpose of this analysis to define and appraise the status of each of the several guidance services (i.e., selection, preparation, placement and follow-up) for Negroes, and to suggest goals for their more adequate development during the next ten years. The predominating frame of reference is the separate Negro secondary school and college, though brief attention is also given to certain conditions in non-segregated schools. No original investigation by the author is here reported. Rather, effort is made to synthesize such existing, often fragmentary, data as have previously appeared in published literature. Attention is given, first, to