THE INFLUENCE OF PARENTING STYLES ON CHILDREN’S CAREER CHOICE IN OYE LOCAL GOVERNMENT SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN EKITI STATE

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Everyone wants to be identified with a career regardless of its worth’s or value, whereas individuals are optimistic about their career choice. The oxford advanced learners dictionary of current English defines career as ”a job or profession especially one with opportunities for progress or promotion” A profession is therefore ” is a dignified occupation based on intellectual training and desirable mental exercise the purpose of which is to render service’’. Henry-bell (2006) Stress that career is the totality of experience through which one learns about and prepares to engage in work as a part of his way of living. Chen (2003) objectivist believe that occupational matches can be measured and predicted mainly through scientific assessment and will logically state what type of career choice best fits that person. This type of thinking was dominated in the early 20th century-Frank Person the designated founder of the vocational guidance movement. Speete (2002) Observe ” career is an ongoing process that occurs over the life-span and includes homes school and communities”.
Eduwen (2000) opined” it is realistic that students desire help in order to make satisfying choice of the occupation. Career choice has become a complex science with the advent of information technology, the emergence of post industrial revolution and job competition. It was a common practice in the old days to find feudalism converting it into a family affair where the son of a blacksmith was destined to become a blacksmith and a feudal was born a leader. Industrialization and post industrialization has made it possible for a common person to be richer as long as she or he has due skills and knowledge (Wattles, 2009). Today, one has not only to make due career planning but also exhaustive career research before making a career choice so as to adjust with the evolving socio-economic conditions (Wattles, 2009). Most of students who are secondary schools do not have accurate information about occupational opportunities to help them make appropriate career choice. According to Kerka (2000), career choice is influenced by multiple factors including personality, interests, self-concept, cultural identity, globalization, socialization, role model, social support and available resources such as information and financial. Bandura et al (2001) state that each individual undertaking the process is influenced by several factors including the context in which they live in, their personal aptitudes, social
contacts and educational attainment. According to Hewitt (2010), factors influencing career choice can either be intrinsic or extrinsic or both. Hewitt further states that most people are influenced by careers that their parents favor, others follow the careers that their educational choices have opened for them, some
Career selection is one of many important choices students will make in determining future plans. This decision will impact them throughout their lives. The essence of who the student is will revolve around what the student wants to do with their life-long work. Everyone should have an honest occupation” (Rosenstock & Steinberg, cited in O’Brien, 1996, p. 3). Every student carries the unique history of their past and this determines how they view the world. That history created, in part by the student’s environment, personality, and opportunity, will determine how students make career choices. It then follows that how the student perceives their environment, personality, and opportunity also will determine the career choices students make.
Factors in Career Choice, the first factor in career choice, environment, may influence the career students choose. For example, students who have lived on an island may choose a career dealing with the water, or they may choose to leave the island behind, never to have anything to do with water again. Maybe someone in the student’s life has made a significant impact or impression, leading to a definite career choice.
Parents’ educational background and parenting style may influence student views on whether or not to continue their education. Someone they saw on television may have influenced the student, or parents may have demanded that they Career Choice Factors 12 assume a family business. First, these are various environmental factors that would lead a student to a chosen career. How students have seen themselves in a role in which personality is a determining factor may influence a chosen career. Some careers demand that you have the personality to match the qualities of the occupation. For example, sales people have to be outgoing. Second, through the parenting style it creates different personalities Splaver (1977) said “personality” plays an important role in the choosing of the right career. A student’s personality must be a selfmotivated type, as to investigate career possibilities from early on in their lives, and not the procrastinating type that waits until they are compelled to decide. Students must take seriously the role grades play in limiting opportunities in the future. Splaver went on to say, “It is
important for you to have a good understanding of yourself, your personality, if you are to make intelligent career plans” (Splaver, 1977, p.12).
Opportunity is the third factor that has shaped career choices for students. Opportunity may influence how students have perceived their future in terms of the reasonable probability of a future in particular career fields. The issue of poverty has played an important determining role in the opportunities available to all. The income level of high school families may determine what career a student chooses during a specific time in the student’s life; choices that will determine a large part of that student’s future. Some students will have to budget education according to their personal income. Thout (1969) addressed those in desperate need, “Where necessary, these persons [Individuals described as living under the poverty level] must be assisted through special training programs to overcome educational and social handicaps so that minimum job standards can be met” (p. 1). Students in many cases will need the proper mentoring Career Choice Factors 13 opportunities to succeed. These support groups will be another opportunity that if properly implemented, can help a student in the career choice process.
The most common factor is parenting style. The family is a place in which children learn to interpret reality (Way and Rossmann 1996b). Parents serve as significant interpreters for children of information about the world and children’s abilities (Hall, Kelly, Hansen, and Gutwein 1996). Researchers have studied the influence of parents and the family on children’s career choice and development. Much of this research has demonstrated links between career development and such factors as socioeconomic status, parents’ educational and occupational attainment, and cultural background. This Digest highlights a different body of research that considers the effects of family relationships. This research is based on attachment theory, which suggests that close relationships provide experiences of security that promote exploration and risk taking (Ketterson and Blustein 1997), and social learning theory, which views “early experiences as a basis for developing career self-efficacy and interests as well as career goals and choices throughout life” (Altman 1997, p. 241). The Digest looks at the ways in which parenting styles, family functioning, and parent-child interaction influence career development.
Roe, an early theorist, proposed that early childhood experiences play an indirect role in shaping later career behavior (Brown, Lum, and Voyle 1997). She suggested that parent-child relationships influence personality orientations and the development of psychological needs;
vocational interests and choices are some of the ways in which individuals try to satisfy those needs (ibid.). Although Osipow (1997) and others point out the difficulty of demonstrating links between parenting styles and vocational choices, some research evidence is emerging.
Parenting styles are broad patterns of child rearing practices, values, and behaviors. Four types of parenting styles are:
i. Authoritative (both demanding and responsive),
ii. Authoritarian (highly demanding and directive but not responsive),
iii. Indulgent or Permissive (more responsive than demanding), and
iv . Uninvolved (low in responsiveness and demandingness) (Darling 1999).
The authoritative style balances clear, high expectations with emotional support and recognition of children’s autonomy. Studies have associated this style with self-confidence, persistence, social competence, academic success, and psychosocial development (Bloir 1997; Strage and Brandt 1999). Authoritative parents provide a warm family climate, set standards, and promote independence, which result in more active career exploration on the part of children (Kracke 1997). Although authoritarian parenting is associated with school success, pressures to conform and fulfill parents’ expectations regarding education and careers can cause a poor fit between the individual and the chosen career, as well as estranged family relationships and poor mental health (Way and Rossmann 1996a). Families with uninvolved (or inactive) parents “seem unable to function well either because they cannot set guidelines, or because they do not pursue interests that involve places and persons outside the family” (ibid., p. 3). This makes it more difficult for children to develop self-knowledge and differentiate their own career goals from their parents’ goals.
Overall family functioning, a broader concept that encompasses parenting style, includes such factors as parental support and guidance, positive or negative environmental influences, and family members’ interaction styles (Altman 1997). Family functioning has a greater influence on career development than either family structure (size, birth order, number of parents) or parents’
educational and occupational status (Fisher and Griggs 1994; Trusty, Watts, and Erdman 1997). Parental support and guidance can include specific career or educational suggestions as well as experiences that indirectly support career development, such as family vacations, provision of resources such as books, and modeling of paid and nonpaid work roles (Altman 1997). The absence of support, guidance, and encouragement can lead to “floundering,” the inability to develop and pursue a specific career focus. Lack of support can also take the form of conflict, when a parent pressures a child toward a particular career and may withdraw financial and emotional support for a career path not of the parent’s choosing (ibid.). Family functioning also includes the response to circumstances such as poverty, alcoholism, marital instability, and illness or death of family members. Sometimes an individual may respond to a stressful or negative family environment by making hasty, unreflective career choices in an attempt to escape or survive (ibid.). On the other hand, critical life events can spur a transformative learning experience that may shape a career and life direction (Fisher and Griggs 1994).
Interactions between parents and children and among siblings are a powerful influence. Interactions can include positive behaviors such as showing support and interest and communicating openly, or negative behaviors such as pushing and controlling (Way and Rossmann 1996a). By sharing workplace stories, expressing concern for children’s future, and modeling work behaviors, parents serve as a context for interpreting the realities of work (ibid.). Parent-child connectedness facilitates risk taking and exploration, which are needed for identity formation in general as well as for the formation of vocational identity (Altman 1997; Blustein 1997). Siblings can be a source of challenge and competition and a basis for comparison of abilities, thus providing a context for identity formation (Altman 1997). Because career development is a lifelong process, “family of origin continues to have an influence through the life span” (ibid., p. 242). Understanding early family experiences and relationships can help adults identify barriers to their career progress.
Whiston (2004) suggested to students, perceived parental expectations had a stronger influence than socio-economic status, but the influence was indirect through the variables of student’s occupational expectation, which in turn affected career choice. The findings of Endicott (1984) indicate that student perception of parental expectations is an important factor in career choice as a parental influence. Generally, this inquiry lends empirical support to the assertion
that student perception of parental expectations may contribute significantly to career choice. Parenting style exerts a lot of influence on the educational attainment of the adolescent especially the socio-economic status of parents. The possibility of re- entry into school is enhanced if the adolescent girl comes from the high socio-economic status family among girl child drop out group (Alika & Egbochuku, 2009). Academic performance is positively correlated with parents who enforce rules at home (Ryan, 2005). Family influences the behavior or character of a child (Trost & Levin, 2000). Parents play a significant role in laying the foundation of their children’s career (Tella, 2003).
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
This research is based on the influence of parenting style on the choice of career among secondary school students in Oye Local Government Area of Ekiti State. The parents may desire what they think is good or best for their ward. This may affect the child positively if the child can cope with it but negatively when such a child has other things in mind, which he/she wishes to do. The result of this is that the child may not concentrate on the parents needs and so may not adjust positively towards the career. This sometimes leads to student’s waywardness, secrete cult involvement, armed robbery and so on. The child may not cope with the parents continual force against his/her will. Parents often known as the most important being who play a significant role on their child’s development morally, educationally and psychologically.
The world is speedily making such drastic demand upon the coming workers every truthful man and woman, who teaches and reflecting parents is planning way to fit the students for the life and needs of this new century. This statement which is still relevant today was written by Mejer Bloomfield in his book ‘finding ones place in life in (2007) since the early 2000 career development or vocational guidance at it was then known has increasingly gained more and more attention and respect in essence career counseling is a specialty within the profession of counseling one that fosters vocationally development and work adjustment of individual abilities interest and goals with the work roles structured by the community and occupation organized by companies and assist a developing and deciding individual to make suitable and viable choice why examine the factors affecting career choice on senior secondary school students, in the past and even now for many. It was assumed that an individual going through late adolescence would
be developing their independence and slowly eliminating his or her family’s constraints as he or she formed his or her own identity into the larger world, in effect the person would make career decision based on his or her own interest and occupational goals with limited influence from others. In fact even when young adult move away from home, their family will likely still have a strong influence upon them on two significant life events marriage and their career. Parents often time disregard the ability of their children and choose career they feel is suitable.
The parenting style, thus creates different types of personalities for children for example, children whose parents adopts authoritative parenting style are more liable of personality traits such as assertiveness, self-control, self-regulation and self-dependence. The research question which the study attempt to verify are as follows
RQ1. Will authoritarian parenting style have significant relationship with student’s career choice?
RQ2. Will authoritative parenting style have significant relationship with student career choice?
RQ3. Will permissive parenting style have significant relationships with student’s career choice?
RQ4. Which parenting style authoritarian, authoritative, permissive is most significant in student’s career choice.
1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
Therefore, the present study deems it imperative to investigate the extent to which parenting style will play an important part in career decision making among students. Generally, this inquiry lends empirical support to the assertion that student perception of parental expectations may contribute significantly to career choice. It will unveil possible ways, trying to find out to what extent, the influence of the parent will play on the student’s choice of career, and whether the influence will always aid the students positively or negatively.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
The importance of this research work is to find to what extent the influences of the parenting style will affect the student’s choice of career.
 It will enable the researcher give recommendations to the parents about their children’s response to their career.  It will enable the researcher make concrete recommendations to the government about the choice of career among students especially now that the rate of unemployment is high.  It will enable the researcher to make recommendation to school administrators.  The findings will also enable the researcher made recommendations for further research on the issue of career prospects.