Parental involvement in career education and guidance in senior general secondary schools in the Netherlands

It gives me great pleasure to announce that Dr Anna Maria Oomen has completed her thesis and been accepted as a PhD by the University of Derby.

Dr Oomen’s research examines the involvement of the parents of secondary school children in career education and guidance (CEG). It is based on research conducted on a parent-involved career intervention called ‘Parents Turn’, in which six career teachers delivered four successive sessions to parent(s) accompanied by their child in the third or fifth year of their secondary school (HAVO) in the Netherlands.

The study is important both to the field and to practitioners. Examples of parent involved career intervention in CEG are limited, scantily researched, and most were not sustained, which may explain why knowledge on involving parents in CEG is underdeveloped.

The findings suggest that a school-initiated career intervention involving parents, in the form of family learning and community interaction, can build and enhance parents’ capacity to be involved in and support the career development of their child: their knowledge and skills, parental self-efficacy and parental role-definition.

This is important work and Dr Oomen’s PhD is richly deserved!

Well done!

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