Research has demonstrated the importance of parental involvement in adolescents' career planning. Yet limited research has been conducted on the practices used by high schools to enhance the involvement of parents in their adolescent's career planning and decision-making. The purpose of this study was fourfold: (1) to examine the perceptions of high school counselors and career specialists regarding the value of involving parents in their child's career planning process, (2) to identify the activities that schools currently use to foster such involvement, (3) to identify the barriers that high school counselors and career specialists believe may prevent successful parental involvement in student career planning and decision-making, and (4) to determine if the valuing and implementation of parental involvement activities differed by rural, urban, or suburban geographic context.

The study sample was composed of 184 high school counselors and career specialists employed in schools in Florida and South Carolina who completed an online survey. The survey assessed the participants' perceptions of the importance and implementation of eight types of school activities involving parents and their perceptions of the most significant school-based and parent-based barriers to parental involvement. The results revealed that all eight types of parental involvement activities were considered by participants to be important for their school's career planning programs and that each of the eight types of activities were provided at the participants' schools. In addition, the valuing and implementation of these eight types of parental involvement activities did not differ significantly by the nature of the school's geographic context. Moreover, there were statistically significant associations between the importance ratings and the provision of each type of involvement activity revealing that not only did the respondents perceive that the activity was valued by their school, but the activity was implemented as well. Finally, participants reported that the most significant barriers for educators to the effective involvement of parents were lack of time and limited parent interest, while for the parents the most significant barrier was lack of time. (Full text of this dissertation may be available via the University of Florida Libraries web site. Please check http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/etd.html)