Career Maturity: The Construct's Validity,Vitality, and Viability

Career maturity is a useful construct for studying adolescents, but it has limits. Professional counselors need to integrate personality and decision-making style into research on career maturity as well as give more than a passing nod to developmental theory. They cannot study career development at the individual level alone; context matters and is an integral part of career development. The amount of variance in individual career development accounted for by context and change may be so great that longitudinal research on individuals may not be worthwhile.     

Contributions of Self‐Efficacy Theory to Career Counseling: A Personal Perspective

The author provides a brief overview of A. Bandura's (1977, 1997) self‐efficacy theory, followed by a discussion of the value of this theory to career counselors, which includes particularly useful features of the concept of self‐efficacy and suggestions for its application in career assessment and counseling, with a special focus on group interventions.     

Career Theory From an International Perspective

The Career Theory in an International Perspective group highlighted 7 approaches: action theory, self‐construction model, transition model, dynamics of entering the workforce, narrative in career guidance, dilemma approach, and interactive identity construction. Three main characteristics appear to be common to these different contributions: (a) emphasis on contexts and cultural diversities, (b) self‐construction or development emphasis, and (c) a constructivist perspective. Such conceptualizations are quite distinct from the methods and tools most often used by career and school counselors in their daily activities. A proliferation of models was noted. The need for new models, methods, and materials probably originates (a) in the diversity of societal questions emerging in the field of career development and self‐construction and (b) in some differing points of view regarding goals of personal and career development interventions.     

A Content Analysis of Career Development Theory,Research, and Practice—2013

This annual review of the career counseling and development literature presents a content analysis of refereed journal articles published in 2013. Four research questions guided the analysis: (a) What content topics were included in career development articles published in refereed journals in 2013? (b) To what extent are theory, research, and practice integrated in career development articles published in refereed journals in 2013? (c) What variation exists in the characteristics of career development articles published in refereed journals in 2013? and (d) What variation exists in the content included in theory, research, and practice articles? A total of 360 unique topics were identified in 357 articles from 24 journals. Results indicated that topic content in journals evolved slowly with limited integration of theory, research, and practice. Implications are suggested for (a) future topic content; (b) better integration of theory, research, and practice; (c) education and training; (d) journal editorial policy; and (e) future content analyses of journal articles.     

The Role of Work‐Related Skills and Career Role Models in Adolescent Career Maturity

The authors used data for 2,722 British adolescents, ages 14–18 years, to explore whether work‐related skills and career role models are associated with career maturity when sociodemographic characteristics (age, socioeconomic status, gender, family structure), family support (mother involvement, father involvement), and personal characteristics (self‐confidence, academic motivation) are controlled. Having work‐related skills and having a career role model were positively associated with career maturity, and having career pressure was negatively associated with career maturity. Family structure and socioeconomic status were unrelated to career maturity. Academic motivation, mother involvement, father involvement, and self‐confidence were related to career maturity at the bivariate but not at the multivariate level.     

The Storied Approach: A Postmodern Perspective for Career Counseling

The author discusses the storied approach as a constructivist perspective on career counseling. The storied approach explores the client's world through story development as the client and counselor collaboratively co‐construct, deconstruct, and construct life stories. Story development encompasses the client's past, present, and future life experiences that are related to life roles (i.e., family, student, worker, leisure, community). Assessment consists of both quantitative and qualitative data that are woven into the client's story as the symbols or meanings that call for further exploration.     

The Interdependent Family‐Centric Career: Career Perspective of the Overseas Chinese in Indonesia

This theoretical article presents an interdisciplinary approach to extend the scope of current career theories and their application to the overseas Chinese (OC) in Indonesia. Using an ecological model to analyze culture and an emic perspective, the article discusses several factors that affect careers of OC Indonesians. Factors such as culture, discrimination, subjective careers, Confucian values, and family business structure are discussed as variables that create a bounded career perspective. This conceptual view is used as a foundation to discuss the needs for future research and the development of a cross‐cultural career model that is applicable in bounded career environments.     

Career Maturity and Quality of Life in Korean Adolescents: A Cross‐Lagged Panel Design

This study investigated the effectiveness of a short‐term career exploration program for enhancing career maturity and quality of life in Korean adolescents. It further tested causality between career maturity and quality of life defined as school satisfaction and subjective well‐being. We used a cross‐lagged panel design to examine the links among career maturity, subjective well‐being, and school satisfaction, measured both before and 4 weeks after a career exploration program for 224 Korean middle school students. Study results indicated that 4 weeks after the program implementation, there were significant increases in career maturity, subjective well‐being, and school satisfaction. A significant causal relationship from the pretest score of career maturity to the posttest score of school satisfaction was found. Results suggest that the implementation of a short‐term career exploration program designed to increase career maturity also significantly promotes school satisfaction. Limitations of the study are discussed along with suggestions for future research.     

Complexity,Chaos, and Nonlinear Dynamics: A New Perspective on Career Development Theory

The author presents a theory of career development drawing on nonlinear dynamics and chaos and complexity theories. Career is presented as a complex adaptive entity, a fractal of the human entity. Characteristics of complex adaptive entities, including (a) autopiesis, or self‐regeneration; (b) open exchange; (c) participation in networks; (d) fractals; (e) phase transitions between order and chaos, (f) search for fitness peaks; (g) nonlinear dynamics; (h) sensitive dependence, (i) attractors that limit growth; (j) the role of strange attractors in emergence; and (k) spirituality, are described and then applied to careers. The article concludes with a brief case analysis and implications for practice and research.     

Parental Behavior and the Quality of Adolescent Friendships: A Social‐Contextual Perspective

On the basis of an evolving social‐contextual perspective, the authors predicted and found that socioeconomic advantage in terms of income and parental education promotes supportive and inhibits hostile parental behaviors toward an adolescent child (N= 221). These parental behaviors predicted similar actions by the child toward a close friend 4 years later. In turn adolescent supportiveness promoted close friendship ties, whereas hostility diminished the quality of friendships. The results support the notion that, to a significant degree, the quality of family interactions: (a) arises from the social context surrounding the family, (b) is transmitted across generations, and (c) has a demonstrable impact on the quality of adolescents' social ties outside the family.     

The Relationship Between Attitudinal and Behavioral Aspects of Career Maturity

The construct of career maturity has played a prominent role in career development theory. To have practical significance, however, career counselors should know that career maturity is linked to actual career-related behaviors. Toward this end, the current study investigated whether a meaningful relationship existed between an attitudinal measure of career maturity and a measure of career maturity reflecting job performance-related behavioral competencies in a sample of minority youth. Only modest relationships were found between several career maturity attitudes and the behavioral measures. Results are discussed and implications for career counselors working with minority adolescents are provided.     

General Job Satisfaction From a Developmental Perspective: Exploring Choice—Job Matches at Two Career Stages

The authors explored predictions of general job satisfaction at early and middle adulthood and uncovered several findings about developmental processes associated with job satisfaction. Tests of life‐span career theory propositions revealed that neither choice‐job congruence nor gender added significantly to predictions of job satisfaction at 2 career stages. Earlier occupational choice and current job added to predictions of midcareer (modal age 43 years) job satisfaction, especially for men. The predictability of job satisfaction is apparently influenced by the career stage when satisfaction is appraised.