Trends in high school vocational/technical coursetaking: 1982-1998

This report uses data from the high school transcript studies of 1982, 1990, 1994, and 1998 to examine trends in the vocational coursetaking of public high school students, including their vocational coursetaking overall, coursetaking in computer courses, and the ways in which students combine vocational and academic coursetaking. The report finds that, in general, student participation in vocational education declined during the 1980s and early 1990s, but has leveled off since then. Academic coursetaking increased over the entire period, however, so that vocational became a smaller proportion of all coursetaking throughout the period studied. Concentrated and sequential vocational coursetaking also declined between 1982 and 1998, while coursetaking in computer-related courses increased. On average, all students increased their academic coursetaking between 1982 and 1998, including students who were 'vocational concentrators'. While vocational concentrators in 1998 took fewer academic courses on average than other students, these differences tended to be small.

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