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.     

‘If you're a male primary teacher,there's a big “why are you doing that? What is wrong with you?”’ Gendered expectations of male primary teachers: The ‘double bind’

The underrepresentation of men in non-traditional fields of work is often attributed to essentialist gendered beliefs that associate such roles exclusively with women. This phenomenon is not limited to any specific country but is observed worldwide. Moreover, male teacher drop-out rates remain a consistent issue. This article examines the detrimental impact of gendered expectations of masculinity on male primary teachers through interviews conducted with both male and female teachers in the UK. It argues that men in this occupation face a ‘double bind,’ being judged for conforming to hegemonic masculine norms while also facing judgement for deviating from them. All male teachers interviewed expressed feeling the pressure of gendered expectations, which primarily stem from one central misconception fuelled by traditional conceptions of gender; that the occupation is unsuitable for men. As a result, men who enter the profession encounter challenges not only related to their gender but also their sexuality and their sense of professional identity as teachers. Addressing the damaging role of gender beliefs is crucial in promoting the numerical representation of men in the teaching profession.     

Career Counseling and Possible Selves: A Case Study

Process-oriented case analyses, which are the natural next step in understanding career interventions, are beginning to reveal subtle process changes across sessions. In this case, a 37-year-old physical therapist, who expressed dissatisfaction with her current position, participated in 8 sessions of individual career counseling with an experienced doctoral-level career psychologist. The Possible Selves Questionnaire (PSQ; Markus, 1987), the Symptom 90-R Checklist (Derogatis, 1983), and the Career Decision Scale (Osipow, 1987) were administered at pretesting, after 4 sessions, and at posttesting. Four client- and 2 counselor-process measures were also administered following each session. Results revealed expected changes in traditional outcome measures, and an increase followed by a decrease in future possible selves. Anxiety and vocational information seeking followed a sine-shaped pattern, and sleep disturbance increased at midcounseling and posttesting. Session depth and smoothness were highest when anxiety and information seeking were lowest. These findings, which coincide with other case study results, were integrated using an activation theory model of career intervention in which moderate anxiety serves as a motivator for constructive behavior change.     

谈高职学生对职业生涯规划的迫切需求

在当前严峻的就业形势下,高职院校要帮助学生学会分析自己、分析职业,有针对性地提高自身各方面的能力,从而提高高职学生就业率和就业质量,因此职业生涯规划教育成为高职教育的迫切需求。通过职业生涯规划使高职学生尽早确定自己的职业目标,把握自己的职业定位,采取必要行动,最终实现职业生涯目标。     

Double Jeopardy in Hollywood: Age and Gender in the Careers of Film Actors, 1926–1999

There have been few studies of the concept of double jeopardy as it pertains to the effects of gender and aging on occupational outcomes. This research examines the utility of this concept in the field of film acting, traditionally a gender-integrated occupation. The results confirm significant negative effects of being female and being older on the number of film roles received by actors and their average star presence. Moreover, the gendered effects of aging on the career opportunities of actors have diminished somewhat over time with respect to number of film roles but not with respect to star presence.     

Professional Socialization as Embedded Elaborations: Experience,Institutions, and Professional Culture Throughout Teacher Careers

Across a wide range of studies on professional socialization, there is a shared assumption that people carry forward what they learn in formal training experiences and somehow bring it to bear on the subsequent organizational settings they enter. Yet we actually know very little about whether, and exactly how, people carry forward the meanings they develop as part of their professional socialization experience. We address this gap in the literature by examining professional socialization that unfolds over the teaching career. Combining interview data with public and private school teachers across career stages with ethnographic data of a university‐based teacher education program, we examine how the meanings people develop about their work are shaped concomitantly by accumulated experience and institutional settings. We develop a conceptualization of professional socialization that we call embedded elaborations, which attends to the ways that people's ongoing meaning making (or elaborations) is situated (or embedded) institutionally and temporally. We also show how embedded elaborations act as meaning‐making processes through which people in local settings actively produce and reproduce elements of a wider professional culture.     

Exploring the origins of careers in public relations

This study of the origins of careers in public relations seeks to contribute towards historical knowledge of public relations through content analysis of biographies and other published narratives of those who worked in the field within the US and Britain in its formative years. Opportunities for public relations to offer a career rather than simply a transitory job or occupation were identified. The potential for enhanced benefits, including greater income and higher social status, were noted as a result. However, despite evidence of the possibility of professional and bureaucratic career paths, public relations pioneers tended to reflect entrepreneurial, opportunistic and primarily commenda (agency) forms of career. Most early practitioners entered the field by chance revealing a lack of deliberate focus on seeking employment in the occupation. Their varying entry points suggest the concept of equifinality (whereby different routes may lead to the same end); although career progression for those employed in public relations support functions, and the experiences of women are largely undocumented. Overall, the tapestry of early careers in public relations reflects a common thread of communications and openness to take advantage of the changing times. Otherwise, few patterns can be detected, with individual opportunities than a specific career path being the dominant theme.     

Counseling for Continued Career Development After Retirement: An Application of the Theory of Work Adjustment

The theory of work adjustment (TWA; R. V. Dawis & L. H. Lofquist, 1984; L. H. Lofquist & R. V. Dawis, 1969, 1991) is useful in addressing the career counseling needs of retirees who want to continue working but who need to explore their career choices before settling on a new occupation or job. This article examines some of the challenges that midlife and older adults face as they plan postretirement careers. Information about TWA and a case example are provided to assist counselors in understanding how TWA can be applied to retirement career counseling.     

Religion,Spirituality, and Career Development in African American College Students: A Qualitative Inquiry

The authors explored through semistructured interviews the interrelationships of religion, spirituality, and career development in a sample of 12 African American undergraduate students. Using consensual qualitative research methodology (C. E. Hill, B. J. Thompson, & E. N. Williams, 1997), they identified 6 primary domains or themes related to these students' experiences in this regard, including (a) degree of identification as religious and/or spiritual, (b) parents' influence on religious and spiritual beliefs, (c) roles of religion and spirituality in participants' career development, (d) challenges in dealing with academic and career‐related issues, (e) religious and spiritual strategies to deal with academic and career‐related challenges, and (f) indicators of success in future career or occupation.     

可持续发展中的教师职业生涯规划研究——以南通纺织职业技术学院为例

在高职院校招生、就业竞争日趋激烈的背景下,可持续发展是高职院校获得竞争优势,实现平稳、协调发展的基础,学院可持续发展的实现离不开教师的职业生涯规划。文中将南通纺织职业技术学院可持续发展与教师职业生涯规划进行结合,以求在调动教师工作积极性的同时,更好地推动南通纺院的可持续发展。     

Taking Your Place: A Summer Program to Encourage Nontraditional Career Choices for Adolescent Girls

A 2-week summer program for adolescent girls featuring awareness of nontraditional career choices was provided via a cooperative plan from a public school system, a community college, and a university. The program included 80 hours of activities: business and industry visitations, technical and trade shop “hands-on” activities as well as self-concept building experiences. Upon completion, a majority of the participants reported confidence in learning about and choosing an occupation, and clearer ideas about possible occupations for themselves. Implications of these results for career development practices and research are described.     

A career exploration programme for learners with special educational needs

Learners with disabilities lag far behind their peers without disabilities in achievement, graduation rates, post-school education and employment outcomes [4]. Against the current state of education affairs in South Africa, where curriculum models for learners with special educational needs (LSEN) are still under revision, therapists and teachers are finding it difficult to prepare these learners for appropriate employment after school. Even where systems in education are established, persons with learning disabilities face more challenges to enter employment [5]. This article reports on a unique career exploration programme for grade 11 learners at a school for learners with special educational needs in Gauteng, South Africa. It is a collaborative strategy between the learners, their parents, a teacher and the occupational therapists at the school. Two case studies are described to indicate the success of the program.     

Male routes to a teaching career: motivations,market constraints and gender inequalities

The aim of this paper is to contribute to our understanding of the gender influence on teaching choice. We analyze a large-scale national representative sample of Italian teachers. The choice to teach seems to be more a long-term pathway for women, following their personal values and interest in the intrinsic and altruistic values of teaching. Men, instead, show a more adaptable pattern of choice: chance and switching career played a relevant role in determining their ending up in teaching. ‘Males in a feminized environment’ present an intermediate profile, characterized by stronger constraints due to previous studies and consequent weak labor market opportunities. Our analyses support the idea that men found their pathways to gaining satisfaction from the occupation of teaching, thanks to its flexibility. This is an ambiguous result from a gender perspective: reassuring but also worrying, considering that the adaptation could contribute to the reproduction of gender inequalities within the teaching profession.     

A unified middle class or two middle classes? A comparison of career strategies and intergenerational mobility strategies between teachers and managers in contemporary Hong Kong1

A debate over whether the 'service class' is a unitary middle class or is divided between professionals and managers remains unsettled. This qualitative mobility study seeks to elucidate mobility processes of how professional and managerial groups secure their advantages throughout their working lives and over generations. Using data on contemporary Hong Kong, this paper compares the career strategies and intergenerational mobility strategies of forty teachers and thirty managers. Despite employing somewhat different career strategies, managers do not seem less able than teachers to secure their advantages through their work lives. Using the same intergenerational mobility strategies, teachers and managers exploit economic, cultural, and social resources in a similar way for their children's education. So far as demographic stability over generations is concerned a unified service class is in the making.     

Stability and Change in 25‐Year Occupational Career Patterns

The authors identify and describe occupational career patterns (OCPs) over 25 years for a single grade cohort of 170 rural high school graduates. OCP is the sequence of 1 person's work positions during the adolescent and adult years; a Stable OCP is experienced by persons engaged in the same type of occupation over their entire working career. More than one third of the respondents experienced Stable OCPs. Men experience greater OCP stability than women. OCP stability is linked to lower midlife career and job satisfaction, independent of the early experiences of socioeconomic status and gender.     

The Effects of First Occupation on Long Term Health Status: Evidence from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study

In this paper, we use a longitudinal survey that has collected information for 50 years on a large cohort of Wisconsin high school graduates and their siblings to examine the long term impact of early occupational choice on health status. We find evidence that beginning a career in a blue collar occupation is correlated with several measures of poor health outcomes at ages 50–65. Since our dataset includes usually unobserved pre-labor market characteristics, including IQ and childhood health status, we can show that controlling for these variables is important for many results and suggests a high level of selection into occupation based on health and ability. We also provide evidence of gender differentials in the association between first occupation and later health. Then, we replace our basic measure of occupational categories with summary measures of job characteristics and find that employment at “bad jobs” at the beginning of an individual’s career predicts later health outcomes. Finally, we use sibling information in the dataset to show that unmeasured family background factors explain a large share of the effects of occupation on later health. Overall, the evidence points to limited, though heterogeneous, long term effects of health from blue collar employment.     

CAREER COMMITMENTS OF AMERICAN WOMEN:

The side bets of career commitment in the form of education, occupational preparation, employer selection, full-time involvement, role-conflict avoidance, incorporation of the career into the self-concept and the building of a relatively congruent construction of reality are examined for a sample of metropolitan women aged 25 to 54. The most committed select a specific occupation, obtain appropriate education and job training and organize their role cluster, generalized self and construction of reality around being career women or at least paid workers. It is possible, however, that some of these side bets are very difficult to establish in the conservative climate of current America.     

The Independence of Aptitudes,Interests, and Career Beliefs

The importance of client beliefs in career counseling depends on their ability to add unique information about the client over and above that contributed by aptitudes and interests. The Career Beliefs Inventory was administered to 200 Australian students in grade 10 together with measures of Holland's RIASEC interest themes and scholastic aptitudes. The correlations between scales from the three domains showed clearly that beliefs made a contribution distinct from that provided by aptitudes and interests. Even though the results may reflect possible sampling or method variance, career beliefs in this sample added unique information to that traditionally used in career counseling.     

College knowledge: a critical component of college and career readiness

Policy has traditionally emphasized the completion of academic requirements as the gateway to postsecondary education. There is, however, growing understanding that youth need to develop a wide range of knowledge, skills, abilities, and personal resources for career success, civic engagement, and lifelong learning. It also is necessary to address the social, informational, and financial barriers to college that many first-generation and low-income youth come up against. Allowing youth to participate in programs that provide access to college campuses and classes, through dual or concurrent enrollment, early college models, or expanded learning opportunities, is an effective way to help students gain college knowledge and see themselves as college students. This article offers an expanded definition of college and career readiness and profiles three programs drawn from a larger review of twenty-three programs designed to support college and career success for students from underrepresented groups.     

Pre-service teachers use of and attitudes toward alcohol and other drugs

Drug attitude and use assessment of 598 undergraduate students revealed attitudinal differences between anticipated occupation groups and drug use patterns that paralleled prior studies which used college student samples. Results are discussed as they pertain to the education of those planning to enter the teaching profession.