Cultural Context in Career Theory and Practice: Role Salience and Values

Career theory and practice have long emphasized person variables (e.g., abilities, needs, interests) and have only recently begun focusing on environmental variables in addressing cultural context issues. Contemporary emphasis on contextual variables reflects notable movement toward attaining cultural relevance in career theory and practice. Role salience and values, which are central to developmental perspectives on career and have been considered in other approaches, are key contextual variables that can be examined to make additional progress toward this goal. The author argues that examining the cultural dimensions of social roles and values can enrich theory and enhance practice regarding life‐career development.     

Men in Non‐Traditional Occupations: Career Entry,Career Orientation and Experience of Role Strain

This article explores the experiences of men in non‐traditional occupations. In particular it focuses on the dynamics of career entry, career orientation (namely, a preference for intrinsic or extrinsic rewards) and the possible existence, nature and consequences of role strain. Four occupational groups are examined: nurses, cabin crew, librarians and primary school teachers. The results suggest that men fall into three main categories: seekers (who actively chose the ‘female’ occupation), ‘finders’ (who did not actively seek a non‐traditional career but who found the occupation in the process of making general career decisions) and settlers (who actively chose the occupation, often as a result of dissatisfaction with a more ‘masculine’ job, and who then settled in their non‐traditional career). Settlers, in particular, are associated with a more intrinsic career orientation and express a desire to remain close to occupational and professional practice. Role strain is prevalent in men's experiences in their non‐traditional career. The potential sources of such role strain and the implications for career aspirations and career choices are explored.     

Self-Esteem,Vocational Identity,and Career Salience in High School Students

This study used Super's (1980) life span career development theory to investigate the relations between self-esteem level, vocational identity, and career salience in high school students. Two hundred fifty-one students were randomly selected from junior classes in urban, suburban, rural, and vocational schools. Results indicated that high self-esteem students scored significantly higher than low self-esteem students on vocational identity and career salience (participation, commitment, and values expectations) in school and home or family roles, but they did not differ on work, community, or leisure roles. Implications for life span career counseling are discussed.     

Comparing Intake Concerns and Goals With Career Counseling Concerns

The authors investigated the relationship among clients' intake concerns, intake goals, and career counseling concerns. Results indicated that intake goals focused primarily on resolving D. E. Super's (1957) exploration stage tasks, but concerns included education‐related issues and ego dystonic emotions related to work. Intake concerns and goals were not related to the content of career counseling. Implications are discussed.     

Career and Personal Concerns Expressed by Career Counseling Clients

In this study, the authors used case notes to classify client concerns that surfaced during career counseling with adults in a university-sponsored community counseling center. A two-stage classification system was developed and used to estimate the frequencies of occurrence for career and personal issues that surface during career counseling. The authors concluded that a substantial overlap exists between the content of career counseling and that of psychotherapy.     

Role Salience, Role Embracement, and the Symbolic Self-Completion of Sorority Pledges

According to symbolic self-completion theory, people who feel status anxiety may engage in self-symbolization, resulting in the adoption of symbols used to bolster identity. Self-symbolization is an idealized condition that occurs when a person's status is legitimized by others who accept these symbols as valid status markers. While some studies support this perspective, others have identified blind spots and suggest revision. The current research suggests that role theory be incorporated with this perspective. In this article, the sorority experience is analyzed as a rite of passage in which high levels of role salience produce role embracement and symbolic self-completion. Symbolic self-completion theory is made more robust by analyzing the use of visual symbols as expressions of social roles.     

Positive Adolescent Career Development: The Role of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Work Values

This longitudinal study of 268 Swiss adolescents, spanning across 8th grade, investigated the relation of intrinsic and extrinsic work values to positive career development in deciding, planning, and exploring. Results showed that girls reported more intrinsic and fewer extrinsic work values compared with boys. Students with an immigration background reported more extrinsic values than did students of Swiss nationality. When gender, nationality, and scholastic achievement were controlled, more general work value endorsement was a significant predictor of an above‐average increase in career development over the course of the school year. Endorsement of more intrinsic but not extrinsic work values was related to positive career development.     

Career Concerns and Mobility Motivations of Orchestra Musicians

This paper offers a theoretical and empirical stance towards careers and professional socialization as subjective experience. Focusing on the problematic features of mobility, entrapment, and organizational commitment in the orchestra world, it shows how the analysis of career concerns in the "minor leagues"of organizational sets can reveal the meaning of status passage, definitions of time, and experiential turning points. Some adaptations to failure and the process of making commitments are considered.     

Life-Role Salience and Values: A Review of Recent Research

In this article, recent research using the Work Importance Study (WIS) instruments in English-speaking countries is reviewed. Research results indicate several consistent trends. First, that life-role salience and values must be viewed within specific developmental and cultural contexts. Second, in diverse settings and with different groups, there are sex differences related to the relative importance of life roles and values. Third, career counselors need consider the client's values and life-role salience to facilitate personal development. Recommendations for future research are offered.     

Role Salience and Multiple Roles: A Gender Perspective

This article describes Super's construct of role salience, and recent literature on gender issues in multiple roles that supports the wisdom of his basic ideas. Gender influences how individuals perceive various roles, role priorities and involvements over time, and role juggling during adulthood. Whether or not men and women report key roles as similarly salient; how they define, enact, and manage these roles may differ substantially. Personal variations in life careers remind counselors to explore clients' own life meanings as expressed in roles.     

Antecedents and Outcomes of Work Family Conflict Among Employed Women and Men in Finland

The aim of this study was to examine theprevalence, antecedents, and consequences of work familyconflict among employed women and men in Finland. Thedata were obtained by questionnaire from a sample of 501 employees working in four organizations.The results showed that work family conflict was moreprevalent than family work conflict among both sexes,but that there were no gender differences inexperiencing either work family or family work conflict.Family work conflict was best explained by family domainvariables (e.g., number of children living at home) forboth sexes, and work family conflict by work domain variables (e.g., full-time job, poorleadership relations) among the women, and by higheducation and high number of children living at homeamong the men. Family work conflict had negativeconsequences on family well-being, and work family conflict,in particular, on occupational well-being. The findingssuggest that in particular improvements in working lifeare needed to prevent problems in the work family interface.     

Career Issues and Concerns for Persons Living With HIV/AIDS

As the perception of HIV/AIDS continues to shift from a terminal illness to a manageable disease, persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) are able to reenter the workforce or remain in their current jobs for a longer period of time. Although this change is positive, it also raises many career concerns for PLWHAs. Using an ecological approach and the theory of work adjustment (Lofquist & Dawis, 1969, 1991), the authors provide suggestions for working with PLWHAs on career‐related issues. A case vignette is presented to demonstrate how this approach may be applied.     

Role Induction in Career Counseling

Many vocational psychologists advocate addressing career as well as personal concerns in career counseling. However, some clients may have inappropriate expectations toward career counseling and may not be prepared or want to discuss personal issues. This study examined whether perceptions of the career counseling process could be modified with the use of role induction. Results indicated that, whereas role induction was associated with perceptions of students' own career concerns, gender was a strong influence in perceptions of counseling overall and in the stigma associated with a holistic perspective on career counseling.     

Strain and Enrichment in the Role of Employed Mothers in Israel

This paper analyzed some central elements in the dual role behavior of Israeli employed mothers. Two approaches can be distinquished in the study of working mothers specifically, and multiple role sets in general. The role-strain approach maintains that the two sub-roles compete for scarce resources, thus impairing their performance and adversely affecting the role occupant and her contibution to society. The enrichment approach empphasizes the reciprocal complementarity of the sub-roles and, as a result, the advantages which may compensate for the strain. Some of the skills and assets acquired in one aspect of a dual role are likely to help the role occupant improve their performance and ward off burnout. The balance between strain and enrichment characteristics the Israeli working mother was examined, and the conditions under which strain diminishes while enrichment increases were identified. A representative sample of 1,500 married couples were interviewed by means of a structured questionnaire. The main findings are:

-The average burden, measured in hours, carried by the working mother is larger than the comparable burden on married fathers or on homemakers.

-Decreasing the number of children reduces the gap between self image at work and the one at home, whereas a decrease in the hours of paid employment reduces the sense of burnout.

-Mothers who are rich in resources, schooling, income, and occupational prestige, tend to moderate the role-strain by reducing their tasks: the number of children and the amount of work hours.

-Mothers who are rich in resources are able to recruit hired help to ease the burden involved in the dual role, but they do not manage to enlist greater help from their husbands.

-Mothers who are rich in resources succeed in maintaining work continuity more than do mothers having limited resources.

-Mothers who are rich in resources tend to perceive their work as contributing to their children's education.

The findings indicate that the dual role encompasses elements of strain, internal competition for scarce resources as well as elements of enrichment. The general ramifications of these findings pertaining to the employment of women and to sexual equality are discussed.     

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.     

Career Certainty and Short-term Changes in Work Values During Adolescence

This study examined how career certainty, grade level, and gender relate to short-term changes in work values (Human-Personal, Non-Work, Power-Control, Money-Security) among junior high and high school students (N = 496). With scores based on multivariate ANOVAs, the high and moderate career certainty groups scored significantly higher than the low certainty group on all work values except Non-Work at time 1 (similar results were found at time 2, 6 months later). Between time 1 and 2, each work value declined slightly but significantly; for both Human-Personal and Power-Control, however, the decline over time was greater for the high certainty group than for the low certainty group. The findings suggest that during adolescence, higher career certainty reflects greater engagement in a vocational identity search and a more active consideration of work values.     

Career Patterns and Family Status of Women and Men Artists

These observations are often made about women's career outcomes: (a) women, as compared to men, do not experience career outcomes that are consistent with their training and abilities, and (b) interruptions in women's careers are linked to marriage and children. The current study examined whether these patterns applied to women in art who may have more flexible paid work schedules. Women (N = 109), who trained in art, were compared to their male classmates (N = 99) 18 years after art school. Career patterns, midlife occupations, marital status, and number of children were examined. No gender differences were noted in midlife occupations, however, women experienced significantly more career discontinuity than men, and women with discontinuous careers had significantly more children than women in continuous patterns.     

Career Concerns of Master's‐Level Community and School Counselor Trainees

The authors examined the career concerns of 152 counselor trainees in 7 master's‐level programs accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs. Results indicate that counselor trainees expressed considerable professional development, adjustment, and academia concerns while reporting minimal job‐search concerns. Students reported concerns of significant importance for specific career tasks anticipated during training and general concerns about exploring their career futures and establishing themselves as new professionals. Results of regression analyses indicated that students with high levels of concern for establishment stage tasks reported significantly higher levels of overall career concerns. Implications for counselor education faculty, limitations of the study, and recommendations for further research are delineated.     

A Longitudinal Study of the Problems and Concerns of Urban Divorced Men

This study examined thoughts, problems, and con- cerns of urban divorced men at three points in time: during the first month of divorce (Time I), at six months (Time 2), and one year later (Time 3). Finances, social relationships, and loneliness were major areas of concern; problems in practical living were least troublesome. These men thought more about financial malters at Time 1 than aboul any of the other areas which were major concerns a year later. Statistically significant decreases existed between T i e s 1 and 2 concerning loneliness, reaction of friends to the divorce, reaction of relatives to the divorce, and also between Times 1 and 3 for h e latter two concerns. Five problem areas (loneliness, former spouse contacts, interpersonal relationships, control and compe- tence, discussing the dworce) were derived through factor analysis of problem and concern items. Statistically significant decreases between Times 1 and 2 and between Times 1 and 3 were found in loneliness and also in control and competence.     

Men in Traditional and Nontraditional Careers: Gender Role Attitudes,Gender Role Conflict,and Job Satisfaction

Men established in traditional (mechanical engineering, n = 100) and nontraditional (elementary school counseling, n = 100) careers were compared on their career compromise choices (sex type vs. prestige), adherence to masculinity ideology, gender role conflict, and job satisfaction. The engineers tended to choose sex type over prestige; the school counselors indicated a clear preference for prestige. The engineers reported more traditional gender role attitudes. The gender role variables had little predictive value for the career compromise choices. The Gender Role Conflict Scale (J. M. O'Neil, B. J. Helms, R. K. Gable, L. David, & L. S. Wrightsman, 1986) Conflict Between Work and Family Relations subscale predicted job satisfaction for both groups.