DECA endorses the Career Cluster and pathway curriculum–planning model established by the States' Career Clusters Initiative (SCCI). The SCCI website (www.careerclusters.org) includes information on the initiative and resources (including sample career pathway plans of study for each industry.

Careers in the Marketing Cluster create, communicate, and deliver value to customers and manage customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stockholders.

Using the SCCI pathway model and input from teachers we have identified finance courses and DECA competitive events that can be integrated into each course. These are suggestions for using competitive events in your classroom. They are not intended to restrict you or your students to certain competitive events. Any DECA member can enter any competitive event.

Here is a typical course sequence;

Sample

Career and Technical Courses
Pathway	Marketing Management	Professional Selling	Merchandising	Marketing Comm.	Marketing Research
9th Grade	Principles of Business & Marketing	Principles of Business & Marketing	Principles of Business & Marketing	Principles of Business & Marketing	Principles of Business & Marketing
10th Grade	Marketing	Marketing	Marketing Fashion Merchandising	Marketing	Marketing Marketing Comm.
11th Grade	Internet Marketing Marketing Research	Sales and Promotion Marketing Research	Sales and Promotion Marketing Research	Marketing Comm. Marketing Research	Marketing Comm. Marketing Research
12th Grade	Management Entrepreneur	Sales Management Entrepreneur	Management Entrepreneur	Management Entrepreneur	Management Entrepreneur

Marketing Pathways

Marketing communications: Career opportunities that inform, remind, and/or persuade a target market of ideas, experiences, goods/services and/or images.

Marketing Management: Careers that require broad, cross–functional knowledge of marketing and management to support strategic decision–making.

Marketing Research: Careers that utilize qualitative and quantitative research methods to determine information needs, design data–collection processes, collect data, analyze them, and present data so that they can be used to make business decisions.

Merchandising: Career opportunities in retailing that focus on efficient and effective product planning, product selection, buying, licensing, and inventory control.

Professional Selling: Careers that require in–depth knowledge of the target customer such as the customer's needs, business, competitors, and products; sales processes and techniques; and servicing after the sale.