Making Career Theories More Culturally Sensitive: Implications for Counseling

The primary question addressed in this article is whether and how career theories can be more culturally sensitive without losing value as conceptual explanations or their usefulness for counselors. Contextual action theory is identified as a means to develop culturally sensitive explanations. Six steps are proposed and illustrated, including using the naive observations and subjective reports and recognizing ongoing processes. The use of these steps in counseling is also addressed.     

Career Counseling for Women Preparing to Leave Abusive Relationships: A Social Cognitive Career Theory Approach

Career counselors work with people from varied segments of society. For battered women, some of the challenges they face from intimate partner violence may significantly influence their career exploration and decision making. Social cognitive career theory (SCCT; R. W. Lent, S. D. Brown, & G. Hackett, 1994) is a framework that has important implications for working with these women. In this article, the authors present the unique career needs of battered women terminating abusive relationships, the relevance of SCCT to this population, strategies for using SCCT when working with these women, and a case study illustrating effective use of SCCT.     

Early 20th-Century Career Counseling for Women: Contemporary Practice and Research Implications

The authors critically examine the development of career counseling for women during the early 20th century. The development of career counseling for women lagged behind career counseling for men. Challenges, such as feminization of occupations, restricted occupational opportunities, and societal norms, stunted the development of career counseling for women. Furthermore, career counseling for women varied based on racial groups. Early writings discussed opportunities specifically geared toward White, college-educated, nonimmigrant women. Although these beginning opportunities provided formal guidance to White women, many other women were excluded from formal career counseling and are not represented in these writings. Implications include training practitioners to recognize their own biases when working with women, how gender bias influences career counseling inventories and career theories, and how counselors can challenge these biases and stereotypes to provide the full range of career opportunities to women. Future research should address the impact of career counseling on women of color.     

Career Counseling of Chinese American Women: Are They in Limbo?

The voices for political and financial equality as well as freedom in work and family appear persuasive in the United States. The traditional cultural thoughts, however, persist to alienate Chinese American women from their American counterparts and from the world of work. Counselors play a vital role in exploring the cultural values and specific career needs of Chinese American women and in promoting a healthier environment in which Chinese American women can be empowered to fulfill their optimum occupational potential. In this article, the cultural values and vocational barriers of Chinese American women are explored, and suggestions for career counseling approaches are provided.     

Toward a More Complex View of Career Exploration

This article examines the concept of career exploration in adult populations. In contrast to the prevailing positive view of career exploration, the authors present a more complex and balanced perspective of this process, addressing some of the barriers to career exploration and the applicability of this concept to different populations. They examine differences between voluntary exploration and forced or chance exploration, discuss how relationships may be barriers to exploration, consider various outcomes of career explorations, and call for a more holistic view of the individual in career counseling.     

The Thematic-Extrapolation Method: Incorporating Career Patterns into Career Counseling

One of Donald Super's most important contributions of career counseling was the career model, the idea that one person's sequence of work positions constitutes a whole and unique career. In 1954, he advocated a method for predicting career patterns called the Thematic-Extrapolation Method (TEM). TEM is described and summarized in three identifiable steps. Recent writings from developmental, psychodynamic, and narrative approaches to career counseling suggest innovative revisions and elaborations on the original method. A modified TEM remains a promising, but largely untried, career counseling technique.     

Understanding Career Plateauing: Implications for Counseling

The pyramidal shape of most organizations dictates that virtually all careers will level out before an employee reaches the top of the institution, agency, or corporation. How to maintain or enhance worker productivity and job satisfaction when an employee remains at a career level that discourages one's aspirations are concerns for career counselors, their clients, and organizational executives. This article defines career plateauing, explains types and sources of plateauing, and suggests counseling interventions that can help individuals to recognize and adjust to plateauing. In addition, we recommend proactive measures that will perpetuate the work motivation of effectively-performing plateaued workers as well as remediate the work behavior of the ineffective, plateaued worker. One of life's maxims is that all careers reach a level after which no higher achievement can be expected. From night watchguard to chief executive officer, each person's career has its apex. Thus, career plateauing is inevitable for all who strive and struggle in the work world (Bardwick, 1986). The point in time when an individual will experience, if not recognize, career plateauing is difficult to predict as is the extent to which that person can influence the timing or impact of this phenomenon.     

More Than a Job Club,Sister: Career Intervention for Women Following Incarceration

Following incarceration, women face unique challenges in returning to their communities and seeking employment. This qualitative study used interpretative phenomenological analysis to explore the lived experiences of previously incarcerated women as they participated in It's More Than a Job Club, Sister, a spiritually integrated career intervention, and subsequently sought employment. The following 4 superordinate themes emerged describing this experience: (a) It was more than a job club; (b) God gave me a second chance: the impact of faith on recovery and employment; (c) barriers to employment; and (d) looking ahead. The findings indicate the need for a strengths‐based approach to career intervention that builds upon existing skills and emphasizes identity exploration, uncovering core beliefs and vocational values, bridging the gap between goals and barriers, and leveraging interpersonal skills. The findings also indicate that career counseling with female returning citizens is enhanced by incorporating attention to the role of substance abuse/recovery and by attending to the intersection of calling and vocation.     

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.     

Career Counseling Practicum: Transformations in Conceptualizing Career Issues

The authors describe how their participation in a doctoral-level career counseling practicum has influenced their perceptions of the relationship between career and personal counseling, attitudes toward career services, and career interventions skills.