Working in Europe - evaluation of the questionnaire

In order to be able to compare the different situation of our schools, areas and participating
students we developed a questionnaire.
It was aimed to give background information on the different countries in regards to
differences and similarities in the following sectors:
region, family, languages spoken
career planning of the students and their interest to work abroad
Role of women and girls: development in terms of education, career planning, dream
jobs of grandmothers, mothers and girls plus the jobs the grandmothers and mothers
of our students actually work in.
It would have also been interesting to look into the development of typical female or male
jobs over the last two generations but the focus was specifically on the role of women.


Participation in the questionnaire:

The average of participation was approximately 10% of the students of each school
participating in the project. The questionnaire could be filled in online but had to be filled in
by three people (student and two carers). This was difficult for many families and reduced
the number of results considerably.

The age of the students varied from 9 to 18 which also influenced the answers considerably.
We noticed that younger students dont know a lot about career planning because they
didnt have any yet. This is due to the fact that career planning usually starts at a later stage
in school life.



Live and work in another country

As a general fact we wanted to find out if the participating students are used to speaking
more than one language because they speak a different language at home. Moreover, we
imagined there could be a correlation between the fact that students are already used to
speaking more than one language and their flexibility to work and live in another country.
Therefore, we asked students if
their parents were originally from the country they live in,
they spoke a different language at home than at school,
they wanted to live and work in another country.
The results showed that especially the UK schools have a comparatively high number of
students with one or both parents originally from another country and who speak two
languages.
In order to find out whether we prepare our students to be open to live and work in another
country, we asked them if they wanted to live and work abroad.


The results show that especially the older students (Slovakia, Hungary and Spain) and
students from countries with high unemployment rates for young people have a higher
disposition to live and work in another country.
But the result also indicated that the participating UK schools had a high number of students
not prepared to live in another country.
Considering that the amount of students with migratory background is especially high in the
UK schools, we also filtered the results again to find out whether the fact that students have
parents with a migratory background influences their willingness to live and work abroad.
The following two tables show the results for students with and without migratory
background. The results could indicate that the willingness to leave the family could be
connected to the fact that they already know about possible difficulties people encounter on
moving to another country. A further investigation into this point would be interesting. On
the one hand to find out the reasons for their reluctance to move and on the other hand
how schools can contribute to change this situation




The answers to the question whether their schools prepare them to live and work abroad
the results indicate that students are not very sure about this point. The detailed answers
indicated that language lessons are considered to be the most important preparation they
receive.
It has to be pointed out that Finland is the noticeable exception. Their students are still very
young but they already think their school prepares them to live and work abroad.
This also indicates that more work can be done to encourage the European idea and the
students disposition to live and work in other European countries.










Career planning

The different measures taken by the participating schools in order to prepare their students
for their career are shown in the career planning table. In the questionnaire we wanted to
find out
what students think about the career planning at their school and
which methods of career planning they had tried out,
which practical measures they had participated in.
The results have to be looked at with some caution as career planning activities often start
at a later stage at school. For example the German students are grammar school students
who unfortunately receive much less career planning and it starts at a later stage while
Finnish students already have the chance to try out different job ideas for one day at a
specially designed village, including the planning and a job interview.

Many especially elder students mark that they learn about career planning at school,
unfortunately when asked what they learn and which activities they do specifically, many of
them express that they dont know or that they didnt do any of the mentioned methods or
activities. This clearly indicates that our career planning activities could be more transparent
and clearer for the students in order to give them the possibility to reflect their own learning
about career planning.
In order to help students on their way it is important to know how they picture their future,
which is their dream job and also who or what helped to bring the idea about. This is
especially interesting as in the past parents were the most important source of ideas and
influence for their children.


The results indicate that in most countries todays students are still strongly influenced by
their parents and family. Very often this is helpful, but we also know that the ideas parents
have about the job market are old-fashioned and not adapted to the current job-market.
This means that we need to integrate the parents in our career planning activities, either as
partners (in job fairs, practical days, informing about their jobs or their career).
However, it also means that parents have to be informed about the development of the job
market, the jobs themselves, new jobs and of what their children need to be prepared for
their later career in order to support them in their career planning.

Role of women
As our project is aimed to find out about the change from the past to the future in our areas,
we tried to go back to generations to find out about the role of women in the parents and
grandparents generation.
In order to be able to appreciate any development in the role of women in the career world we
focus on job areas and their development: jobs considered as typically female or male and how the
participation of women in these job areas has developed from the past until today (including the girls
dream jobs).
Unfortunately we could not integrate all answers into the same graph as we had to look into
fathers and mothers sides of the family. This is why we have two graphs to show the
answers of both parents/carers.
From the results we got we can see that typical jobs our students grandmothers were and are
employed at belong to the administrational sector, sales, services, health sector and the family home
although with exception of Finland and former communist countries Hungary and Slovakia, which
strongly supported and support womens independence in work.


We can see in both carer groups that women work mainly in administrating jobs, health
care, services or as homemakers. There is also a considerable number of answers not
employed at the moment, which indicate that while at the moment they might be at home
they dont consider themselves homemakers.
Comparing mothers and grandmothers job it can be seen that there is some development.
Women still mainly work in the same job areas but there is a wider range of jobs open to
women, there are less homemakers than there used to be and more women as managers,
although still very few.
The dream jobs of the girls who participated in the questionnaire are very often connected
to jobs in entertainment, design but also teaching and jobs that have to do with animals and
nature seem to be interesting. Traditionally female jobs like administration or homemaker
are never or very seldom considered dream jobs. But as was to be expected many girls still
dont know what they want to be.








Summary:

This questionnaire included seventy questions to three members of the same family. We
could have evaluated more aspects, as for example specific differences of male and female
jobs in the past, present and future. There is also the possibility to evaluate the text answers
for career planning from the individual countrys point of view in order to evaluate and
further develop career planning activities.
In this evaluation of the questionnaire we tried to focus on the aspects which show the
situation in the different countries and areas and which should influence career planning
activities in our schools.
The results of the evaluation will encourage us to further integrate aspects of Europe into
our curricula and to widen all aspects of career planning to make it more transparent for
students and parents. Parents have to be integrated into career planning activities as they
strongly influence their children.