Critical Issues in Career Education for Handicapped Students

This article discusses the career education concept and its need, significant events, critical issues, and recommendations to make it a viable educational thrust for handicapped students. The authors contend that career education should encompass the knowledges, skills, and attitudes needed for the various life roles and settings that comprise an individual's life, including employment. This will require curriculum efforts to be more extensively directed toward teaching daily living, personal-social, and occupational competencies, as well as basic subject skills. Career education includes the academic/work study curriculum design, but it goes one more step by requiring all teachers to relate their subject matter to its career implications. In addition, it requires a shared responsibility and cooperative relationship among all school disciplines and substantial involvement of parents and community agencies and industries in all phases of education.