A Separated Tribe: Guidance - The Scottish Approach. An Analysis of Policy and Practice at National, Regional and School Level

The broad aim of the research is to undertake a comprehensive analysis and critical appraisal of policy and practice in guidance between 1965 and 1986 at national level, at regional level and at school level in Scotland. At national level, how a concept of guidance has been evolved and enunciated; how this has been expressed in terms of structure and organisation; time and training; and how this has been supported by individuals and institutions with national responsibilities are examined and analysed. At regional level, how national statements have been interpreted; how regional policies have been developed and how these differ across Scotland are considered. At school level, how policy and practice has developed - the roles of senior management; promoted guidance staff and subject teachers; relationships with parents; deployment of resources in terms of staffing, training and time; and variations in practice across Scotland are analysed. Although there has been a considerable investment of public resources in guidance systems in Scottish schools in the past two decades, there is no great body of critical work on the approach to guidance in Scottish schools. Earlier research studies and secondary sources are discussed and analysed but the major part of the research is based on primary sources - reports, committee papers and a vast accumulation of material relating to guidance in Scottish schools previously uncollated and little used in any of the existing studies of guidance. Authorisation was granted to have access to and to make use of the background papers of the Scottish Central Committee on Guidance 1981-5. Regional working party reports (where these existed) were obtained from each education authority in Scotland. At school level so great was the raw material gathered that key questions were identified and examined through the available data. The title of the research is drawn from a comment in a response to the interim report of the Scottish Central Committee on Guidance published in 1983. It sums up a more generally expressed feeling that the separation of the guidance function in schools has not been beneficial to the interest of either staff in guidance posts or the pupils and parents that they serve. It is argued through the evidence that national statements on guidance have provided an inadequate framework for an effective national guidance provision. There were particular weaknesses in the areas of identification of staff with the particular qualities for guidance work; the training that such staff would require and the time allowance that would be needed to undertake specialist responsibilities. The roles of the Scottish Education Department; the Consultative Committee on the Curriculum; Her Majesty's Inspectorate; the colleges of education, the central institutions and university education departments in relation to support and development for guidance are analysed. At regional level it is argued that much of the guidance policymaking that has been undertaken in the 1970's and early 1980's arose from the need to fill the vacuum caused by lack of national policy making in guidance. Thus education authorities in different parts of Scotland have attempted their own definition of the role of guidance staff, the time requirements for guidance work and the most appropriate levels of training. If the task of definition and clarification of the function of guidance ought to have been undertaken at national level there are other areas where it is argued regional policy could have been more fully developed. Those areas include criteria and procedures for the appointment of staff to guidance posts; general oversight of the quality of provision that is offered by schools including studies and surveys of school practice and policies on staff development, including access to appropriate in-service training. At school level these key issues, identified in the course of the research are explored:- (i) to what extent and in what ways have national statements shaped school policies and practice in guidance particularly in the three broad divisions of personal, curricular and vocational guidance? (ii) what evidence is there that guidance staff have accepted or been allowed to take on the broader rules in formulating school policies or curriculum, discipline and home/school relationships'. (iii) in view of the consistent emphasis at national level on guidance as a whole-school function; what evidence is there of structured approaches to involving other teachers in guidance work in a systematic way? (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.)