Influences Of Gender Towards Career Maturity Among Secondary School Students In Zanzibar: A Case Of Magharibi District

ABSTRACT

This study investigated influences of gender towards career maturity among secondary school students in Zanzibar: A case of Magharibidistrict. Participants of this study were obtained through stratified random as well as purposive random sampling techniques. Total sample of the current study comprised of 124 participants whereby 20 were teachers, 20 were parents and 84 were students related to public secondary schools.Moreover, the study employed an ethnographic design.Data were collected through interviews, questionnaires and observation guides. Besides, Donald Super’s career maturity theory and Linda Gottfredson’s theory of circumscription and compromise wereconsidered as guiding posts for conducting the study.The study revealed that malestudents possessed higher career maturity than their female counterparts.However,Logistic regression statistical tool ofSPSS Version 21 showed that gender was statistically insignificant influence on secondary school students’ career maturity.Furthermore, the findings revealed that lack of career guidance provisions hindered career maturity among secondary school students. Although, the findings revealed that male students hadhigher frequencyin the tendency of participating in career related activitiescompared to female students.Nevertheless, the differences of involvements on career related activities across the gender of participants were found statistically insignificance whereas their sig. valueswere greater than the p values(p > 0.05).Additionally, the findingsrevealed that teachers and parents had similar perception on both sexes on career to their children since they did not consider one sex as the superior. Hence, origin of disparities in career maturity between secondary school boys and girls was observed to be resulted by social culture.Moreover, the findings indicated that there was apparently no career disparities implication as the teachers used to involve both sexes in different activities during the teaching and learning process. Based on these findings, the study concluded that in general,gender did not influence career maturity among secondary schools students in Zanzibar.Hence,the current study recommendedimproving career guidanceservices that would expose students to modern career opportunities and make them mature as far as career is concerned.