Principal’s Support: Indispensable Ingredient in Implementation of Career Education

a series of career education workshops for school-based teams of prin-cipals, counselors, and teachers throughout Tennessee. Financial sup-port from a U. S. Office of Career Education grant program made it pos-sible to offer the workshops for graduate credit free of charge to the participants. The workshops were designed to promote infusion of career educa-tion in the total school curriculum. Each school was encouraged to send a team of staff, headed by the principal, because literature re-lated to educational change indicates that innovations are more likely to be implemented in an atmosphere of support, especially support pro-vided by the principal. Because the UTK interdisciplinary staff team presenting the vaork-shops believed that a comprehensive career education program within a school should be a team effort, the staff modeled the team behavior which they perceived to be most likely to effect a successful career education program. Each professor presented a different aspect of a comprehensive career education program. For example, professors in educational psychology discussed the role of the school counselor in a career education program. A curriculum specialist instructed teachers in classroom techniques using career education concepts. Career edu-cation for students with special needs was presented by special educa-tion faculty. Principals received information about their role in a at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on May 17, 2016jcd.sagepub.comDownloaded from 218 comprehensive career education program frorr a professor in educational administration. During the workshop each team developed a plan for implementing career education in its own school. During Spring 1980 a survey was conducted to determine (1) how many of the participants were still using their workshop plans one year later, and (2) what characteristics of participants and/or their institutional settings were most influential in determining the extent to which they had utilized the career education plans