1. Engaging Middle School Children in Discourses of Identity, College, and Careers Cerise L. Glenn, Sally Mountcastle, & Crystal Sutton

2. Turrentine Middle School  Community Partner  Ms. Jennifer Lombard, Guidance Counselor  17 7 th grade students from diverse backgrounds

3. Middle School Students’ Field Trip to UNCG

4. Purpose  To understand how middle school children designated at risk for dropping out construct and interpret discourses of careers, college, and goal attainment  To introduce discourses of careers and create spaces of community engagement with students, their parents, middle school staff, and students and faculty from UNCG

5. Purpose Continued  To examine how participation in the program influences the students’ perceptions of academic achievement, self-identity, and goal attainment  To provide an opportunity for students to learn about specific careers in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), social science, and education disciplines that connect to their current interests, strengths, and hobbies

6.  Program: monthly workshops at TMS and UNCG  Career Exploration  Connection to Goal Attainment and Planning  College  Specific careers Our Project

7. Theoretical Focus  Identity Negotiation (Glenn & Jackson, 2010)  Vocational Occupational Socialization (Myers, et. al., 2011)

8. Career Exploration  Career Cruising  Connection to current interests  Centering students’ voices & identities

9. Mapping the Future Activity  Exploring careers & future  Source messaging (family & media)  Exposure to careers  Career framing

10. Career Binders  Student interest focused  Career exploration:  STEM  Education  Social Sciences  Creative Arts

11. Careers Matched in Each Category

12. Career Binders Cont.  Visual representation of their interests & prospective careers  Tangible resource to keep

13. Education  “job talk” from Jennifer Lombard & Cerise Glenn  Students’ experiences (during trip at UNCG)  College/major exploration (at UNCG)

14.  Tour of Weatherspoon Art Museum  “job talk” facilitated by Sally Mountcastle Creative Arts

15. STEM  Guest Visit: Kinesiology (at UNCG)  Binder exploration in May

16.  College & major exploration (with Crystal Sutton at UNCG)  Students’ experiences (at UNCG) Social Sciences

17. Preliminary Analysis  Connection to messages from family & media  Career focus on salary initially  Foster interest in careers related to career cruising and binders that they may explore or pursue  Goal of money with helping people also used to explore new careers, specifically in STEM  Raised awareness of amount of education needed for specific careers that interest them  Exploring college based on programs/majors (more so than image and/or media portrayals)

18. Thank You!!!  Turrentine Middle School  Office of Leadership and Service Learning  Office of Undergraduate Research  The Graduate School  Department of Communication Studies