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Construction of a career identity for young people in a changing world.

A career counselling perspective.

ABSTRACT

In a world of rapid technological change and job insecurity, construction of a career identity is considered as an overarching phenomenon that underpins personal identity, mental and physical well-being. Career counselling theory has historically influenced practice from a top-down perspective led by industry, predominantly utilising trait and factor theory. Distinctions between counselling, guidance and advice highlight differing meanings. In this study, gender and education are appraised in driving forward a bottom-up approach to change. Evaluation of a range of theory uncovers Social Learning Theory of Career Decision-Making as the dominant methodology for construction of career identity for young people. Systems Theory framework is also shown to be a useful measurement tool of career counselling practice outcomes from a qualitative perspective. The conclusion is that career-counselling practice creates benefit when education is accepted as the central building block of individually motivated career identity construction. Key words: Career Counselling, Social Learning Theory of Career Decision Making, Systems Theory Framework, Trait-and-Factor Theory

INTRODUCTION The ways in which young people become exposed to career counselling has changed dramatically since the beginning of the industrial revolution (Madill, Ciccocioppo, Stewin, Armour and Montgomerie, 2004; Meijers, 1998). Historically, the outcomes of career counselling theory and practice have been inspired foremost by industry, government and society (West, 2002) - the individual often accepting occupations through direction rather than choice. Processes, such as psychometrics (Watts & Kidd, 2000) and one to one interviewing (West, 2002) place the interests of industry ahead of the individual. It seems therefore, that human resources have been guided towards skill acquisition and specific job roles that support political, industrial and social ideologies, rather than individual interest. With education now available to all, irrespective of socio-economic factors (Steinpreis, Anders, Riley, Ritzke & McDonald, 2000), counselling theory has shifted towards client-focused approaches (Rogers, 1959). Rogerian theory emphasises a permissive and non-interventionist environment with a firm belief that people can resolve their own problems (McMahon & Patton, 2002). However, current literature suggests that career-counselling ‘practice’ is lagging behind ‘theory’ with an unhealthy focus on direction and quantitative methodology (Brown & Brooks, 1996). It is argued that career counselling practice has an ‘outdated’ belief that individual traits and factors are still the main underpin for construction of career identities (Savickas, 1996). Modern businesses now organise work around processes and projects that emphasise functional ‘integration’ as opposed to functional ‘concentration’ (Creed, Patton & Bartrum, 2004). Whilst quantifiable and measurable job roles, skills and behaviours may still be preferred in vocational selection (Forest & Brooks, 1993), flexibility and adaptability are now considered as essential, overarching skills of ‘all’ employees (Madill et al, 2004). Accordingly, young people require flexible project based skills in addition to specific academic and vocational skills. Counselling practice is thus challenged in applying theories that offer pragmatic vocational information yet also takes account of the dynamic whole person and highlights why overarching integration skills are important.

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Concepts such as ‘career’ and ‘work’ have new meaning for both employer and employee and as such assessment and measurement must include quantitative and qualitative perspectives (Patton & McMahon, 2002). If the aim of career counselling is to create a career identity in an ever changing world of work then effective decision-making strategies must be capable of accounting for: individual differences, gender, identity, sexual orientation, developmental learning and motivation (Patton & McMohn, 2002). Clearly, taking a snap-shot of an individual and evaluating traits and factors is an inadequate approach. The aim of this paper is to investigate how mechanisms of counselling theory and practice support successful transitions from education to the world of work for young people taking special account of gender issues. The construction of a career identity will be shown to be imbedded within the context of ‘life long learning’ processes that can only be fully understood from the perspective of qualitative, rather than quantitative assessment and measurement.

THEORY According to this literature review of career identity, ‘counselling’ has two rather opposed meanings. Firstly, it can be used to imply non-directive therapy, initially proposed by Carl Rogers (Rogers, 1945), in which the client is supported whilst they gain insight into their career identity problems and construct their own solution. Secondly, it can mean guidance with vocational choices where counsellors offer ‘expert’ advice for a specific role (Chartrand, 1991). With guidance, counselling processes are designed to enable individuals to make informed choices and transitions related to their educational, vocational and personal development (Watts & Kidd, 2000). Guidance is often associated with individual interviews (West, 2002). However, the interview sessions are only one of the settings for guidance: others include group sessions (Novi & Meinster, 2000) and self-help (Wilgosh, 2002). The activities that can take place within theses settings are more varied than during interviews. The Unit for the Development of Adult Continuing Education (1986) for example, highlights seven activities of guidance. Informing, advising, counselling, assessing, enabling, advocating and feeding back are all necessary factors for successful guidance (Watts & Kidd, 2000). This range of activities suggests that young people can draw on sophisticated theory. However, we need to consider which ideas and frameworks are useful in understanding how careers are enacted and how individuals might best be prepared for them, and which need amending or abandoning within the context of expected change. Trait and factor theory implies a matching between individuals and jobs. Career selection occurs as a result of understanding the relationship between knowledge about self and knowledge about occupations (Chartrand, 1991). It is suggested by Forest and Brooks (1993) that some of the assumptions within this theory are so pervasive that almost every career counsellor uses trait-and-factor theory to some extent, perhaps without realising! Krumboltz (1994) suggests that a career counselling theory should be accurate, responsible, comprehensive, integrative and adaptive. Trait and factor theory puts emphasis on closing out competing alternatives to focus in on the one occupation that comes closest to matching interests based on past experiences opportunities (Shepherd & Marshall, 2000). Those who want to explore new activities, hobbies and occupations get virtually no encouragement from the standard way in which interest inventories are constructed and interpreted (Krumboltz, 1994). Criticisms of trait and factor theory are numerous. Fundamentally, the client is lead by the counsellor because the theory ignores: locus of self-control; career obstacles; job search motivation; job relationships; burnout; occupational advancement and retirement planning (Luzzo, Hasper, Albert, Bibby and Martinelli, 1999). In broad terms, this theory does not explain what a practicing counsellor can do to help young people shape their own career path, because theory and practice are not well integrated. As such, the construction of career identities is isolated to single quantitative assessments that exclude developmental issues. Alternative career theory, that recognises lifespan development, motivation and learning, allows for theory and practice to harmonise (Madill, Ciccocioppo, Stewin, Armour and Montgomerie, 2004; Osipow, 1983).

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Arguably, the most significant change for career counselling theory is the move away from objectifying the person in terms of ‘vocation’ and instead, implementing a ‘Rogerian’ client focused approach (Meijers, 2001). This creates the potential for individual construction of a dynamic career identity capable of withstanding multiple work roles (Patton & McMohon, 2002). Today, factors such as: diversity, automation, technology and global competition are now so pronounced that ‘how’ and ‘why’ human resources are utilised for maximum effect within the work place is in a state of new change (Onnismaa, 1998). For example McMahon (2002) highlights school leavers questioning the quality of training on offer in organisations because they expect frequent job change. Career counselling therefore has to adopt a more holistic approach that recognises inevitable change – trait and factor theory can be seen as inadequate here. Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) is a development from trait and factor theory because features such as cognitive skill, identity, family values, diversity and gender can be considered collectively (Brown & Brooks, 1996). The central components of Social Cognitive Career Theory (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994) are based on Bandura’s (1986) Social Cognitive Theory and include self-efficacy and outcome expectations. Bandura (1996) defined self-efficacy as a self-evaluation of one’s abilities to complete a certain task or attain a certain level of achievement or performance. According to Diegelman and Subich (2001), in applying self-efficacy theory to vocational psychology, SCCT posits that individuals are more likely to pursue and be successful in occupations for which they have high self-efficacy (Lent et al., 1994). In contrast, outcome expectations involve an individual’s perception, or outlook, of the likely results of his or her actions towards a specific end (Bandura, 1986). According to SCCT, people are more likely to pursue occupations that they believe will result in positive outcomes such as gainful employment, self-satisfaction, and admiration (Lent et al., 1994). Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) stresses that self-efficacy expectations directly influence career interests (Krumboltz, 1979). Self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986) refers to a person’s beliefs about their ability to successfully perform a given task or behaviour. A person’s self-efficacy expectations influences their coping behaviour, the effort they expend and their persistence. Hackett and Betz (1981) suggest that self-efficacy expectations might help determine a person’s career decisions and achievements. It has been confirmed that career self-efficacy is related to academic performance, vocational interests and persistence with college students (Luzzo, Hasper, Albert, Bibby and Martinelli, 1999). A criticism of SCCT is that it does not emphasise issues of lifespan development sufficiently. Krumboltz (1979) argues there are a vast amount of learning experiences that combine to shape each persons career path. Super (1990) suggests that, as a result, of being born into one particular family setting, individuals are exposed to a limited variety of learning opportunities (Super, 1990). This theory is known as Social Learning theory of Career Decision-Making. The social, cultural, economic, geographic and political circumstances that surround us therefore make available quite different opportunities. Accordingly, the task of a career counsellor is now to promote client learning. Thus career counsellors can be seen as coaches, educators and mentors – not simply matchmakers as with trait and factor theory. What the counsellor really does is to help clients learn the necessary qualities that increase the probability of success in the workplace (Dryden and Thorne, 2000). The upshot from Social Learning Theory of Career Decision-Making theory is that career identity is seen as a phenomenon that involves one’s own whole life, as opposed to just an occupation, and is derived through he process of ‘life long-learning’ (Creed et al, 2004).

GENDER Gender is considered as a central factor in the construction of career identity (Wilgosh, 2002) - education and ‘role modelling’ following close behind. Madill, Ciccocioppo, Stewin, Armour and Montgomerie, (2004) identify large numbers of females beginning undergraduate science, engineering and technology courses but note that they are under represented at postgraduate and in the workplace. The question of why females do not remain ‘connected’ to science when their male counterparts do is unclear. Theory suggests that defining goals and accurately perceiving ability is an important factor

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(Wilgosh, 2002). However, gender differences along with interests, attitudes, beliefs, self-confidence and self-efficacy have all been suggested as contributing factors (Kimura, 2001; Steinpreis, Anders , Riley, Ritzke & McDonald, 2000). What stems from the array of possible contributing factors is that interventions other than simply recruiting women into academic programs are necessary. Approaches that focus on retention of these students are considered as being crucial (Armour et al., 2001). Therefore, we need to explore more specific questions such as: what factors influence women’s career decisions; how does the availability of financial resources facilitate or compromise the attainment of career goals specifically for women and do a limited number of female role models in science and engineering negatively affect young women’s choices? Some of these questions can be evaluated from Super’s theory of vocational development and choice with social cognitive career theory (Lent, Brown and Hackett, 1994). Super (1990) took a life-span approach to the implementation of the self-concept in an occupation. Within Super’s life stages, 17 year-olds are likely to still be in the exploration phase, where they are cautiously considering their needs, interests, competencies, values and opportunities, as well as possibly conducting some initial field selection. They face a transition period (likely around 18-21) years of age where reality is given greater weight in decision-making. Individual competencies, strengths and weaknesses are taken into account as professional education and labour market requirements are considered. A generalised field selection is subsequently converted to a specific career. Several authors (Novi & Meinster, 2000; Hayes, 1994) have suggested that the theory outlined by Super (1990), addresses a male model of career development which fails to recognize the special circumstances facing women even within the same predominately industrialised Western context (Crozier, 1999). Crozier (1999) concluded that more attention should be paid to examining women’s career development ‘from a relational context allowing for a different understanding of career choice, career development stages, multiple life roles, decision-making and career success’ (Crozier, 1999). It is further suggested that a theory of women’s identity formulation should be employed (Gilligan, 1982). According to this theory, only by imbedding their work in a context (for example, computer science) will individuals see connections such as relevance or the benefit to society. Males, on the other hand, studying in the same area, tend to subscribe to a ‘male dominated hacker subculture’ (Madill et al, 2004). That is, males become attached to subject matter because of group conformity whereas females lack early career identify and have to create it. The importance of family members (parents, siblings and other relatives) and friends were found to impact significantly on career self-efficacy (Lalande, Crozier & Davey, 2000). Women’s relationships were ‘highly relevant to their career decisions’ and that this may be a ‘central organizing factor’ in women’s career development (Lalande et al., 2000 p. 200). Shepherd & Marshall (2000) suggested involving parents to assist with young rural women’s career planning. For young women who are members of tightly knit peer groups, Novi & Meinster (2000) suggested group career counselling strategies may be appropriate as this would provide a supportive peer network, particularly for those who are contemplating non-traditional career choices. Diegelman and Subich (2001) show experimentally that self-efficacy is one of the most important ingredients for the counsellor and client to work with in identifying which direction a person should take. Diegelman and Subich (2001) have provided initial pre-experimental support for the utility of attending to outcome expectations in career counselling. Their findings indicate that exploring and intervening with clients’ outcome expectations may be useful in helping them to identify salient aspects of careers which may be important to them but of which they had been unaware previously.

EDUCATION Although education is widely available in western societies, the quality and quantity varies widely, because issues such as parental influence are affected by poverty (Dryfoos, 1991). So, whilst education has the potential to assist individuals in questioning the rigid approaches of trait and factor theory, where individuals leave education early, choice of vocation may be limited. The reality is that practice is often unable to provide a

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humanistic, bespoke framework for the individual who has departed from mainstream education. However, as Marshall (2002) reports, individuals in rural communities are becoming motivated to gain education that will prepare them for ‘flexible’ work that ‘fit’ with their skill and ability levels at specific stages of their life. In this study, Canadian school leavers were shown to risk losing local offers of secure but limited work in forestry in preference to travelling to university for further education after career counselling. Diegelman & Subich (2001), report that attending to outcome expectations in career counselling invites individuals to remain in education rather than opting for ‘short-term’ work. This suggests that counselling practice is being challenged from a bottom up perspective that will lead to belief with theory that embraces the individual. Furthermore, considering the rate of change within industry (Madill, 2004), developmental issues will also contribute in challenging outdated career counselling practice as individuals embrace ‘life long learning’ (Meijors, 2001). ‘Life-long learning’ is increasing, particularly with older people who also make transitions from work back into education and again, back to work (Meijors, 2001).

DISCUSSION Career identity can be considered as an overarching phenomenon that provides a framework for the individual irrespective of immediate type of employment. The key benefit being that personal identity can be seen to be robust to short term change. Having explored gender and education, it seems that counselling theory impacts on the construction of a career identity for young people through constant change. Because of economic and technological change, the individual now has to base career decision-making around many competing factors, such as short-term jobs, wider role acceptance, lack of financial security, mobility and extended education. This is a tough challenge for young people – those who succeed in constructing an overarching career identity can look forward to benefiting from constant change. Career counselling practice that historically provided ‘expert’ advice and guidance can therefore be considered outdated (Luzzo et al., 1999) – client led approaches are now more appropriate (McMahon & Patton, 2002). This is because counselling theory has had a top-down bias led by industry and government and this now incompatible with global economic reality. The reality now is that diversity; mobility and technological opportunity drive a bottom-up client focused approaches with career decision-making. The question is now how can contemporary counselling theory and practice assist in the construction of career identity for young people? Theory that is influenced from a top-down perspective, such as trait and factor theory, simply objectifies the individual in relation to specific vocation taking little account of external factors such as tradition, gender differences and education. According to (Madill et al., 2004) males tend to become attracted to career subjects early on. Females however, do not appear attracted to ‘non-traditional- subjects, such as science – tradition leads to feminine roles such as ‘care giving’ and administration. Counselling practice capable of intervening from a feminine perspective must therefore be led by theory capable or inviting ‘non-traditional’ career choice. Social Learning Theory of Career Decision-Making appears helpful here because ‘life-long learning’ is a central component (Creed et al., 2004). As such, the whole persons life is considered within this theory, which implies that defining goals and recognising academic ability should not be suppressed because of traditional feminist role taking. The need to understand the whole person is also seen with practice in rural communities. It is interesting to see that in the study of rural communities in Canada, counselling practice has been successful with the use of group career counselling. Individuals were invited to consider external educational and work opportunity through advice and guidance – as opposed to client led learning. It is not so much that this approach is a return to top-down counselling, rather, it demonstrates that in rural communities, knowledge is so limited that practice must demonstrate leadership by showing young people alternatives to forestry work. However, group career counselling practice does highlight issues of confidentiality and ethics. As already discussed, career identity is a central part of personal identity (Hayes, 1994). In taking part in ‘group’ discussion, individuals may feel that they this does not allow for individual construction of career identity. In other words,

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individuals may consider group career counselling practice as failing on ethical grounds because areas of their identity may be revealed without their consent. What emerges is that counselling theory heavily influences the construction of a career identity. But, for practice to be able to keep pace with change, in terms of economics and technological influence, theory needs to be flexible. This is clearly seen with rural communities accepting strong leadership from counselling practice. However, practice needs a very different approach with females being retained in science subjects at undergraduate level education. In this case, practice needs to be flexible towards gender differences that hitherto have invited traditional role following. With these kinds of different practical approaches, how should interventions be evaluated? Quantitative measurement of career outcomes is limited to simplistic job choice. From the individuals perspective, evaluating the extent that counselling practice has impacted on the construction of their career identity is likely to come from qualitative measurement. By accepting a ‘life long learning’ approach, counselling practice can lead the individual to view their life experiences as ‘constellations’ that, taken together inform and guide their decision-making at specific moments in their life This framework has been conceptualised by Patton & McMahon (1999) who argue that qualitative measurement does have the potential to cater for a broad range of career learning style.

CONCLUSION The construction of career identity is a complex phenomenon, but one that can be understood in terms of economic, technological and social change. Career counselling theory becomes more effective when bottom-up data is perceived as the real guide for constructing career identity. Although counselling practice is becoming aligned more towards the individual, top-down influences are still relevant and necessary, particularly so in remote communities. The conclusion is that good education provides the individual with the motivation to be curious towards alternatives throughout a changing working life. In reality, counselling practice will have to revert to pure guidance for a person unwilling or unable to accept the concept of ‘life long learning’. Those individuals who are exposed to high quality education will have the advantage in that their own identity is synchronised early on with global working practices – that of constant work change. Word count: 3,489 References: Arbona, C. & Novy, D. M. (1991). Career aspirations and expectations among black, Mexican American and white college students. Career Development Quarterly, 39, 231-239

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Creed, P. A., Patton, W., & Bartrum, D., (2004). Internal and External Barriers, Cognitive Style, and the Career Development Variables of Focus and Indecision. Journal of Career Development 30 (4): 277-294 Crozier, S. D. (1999). Women’s career development in a ‘relational context’. International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling, 21, 231-247

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Diegelman, N. M., & Subich, L. M., (2001). Academic and Vocational Interests as a Function of Outcome Expectancies in Social Cognitive Career Theory. Journal of Vocational Behaviour. 59, 394-405 Dryden, W., Mearns, D. & Thorne, B., (2000). Counselling in the United kingdom: past, present and future. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 28, 4, 467-483 Dryfoos, J. G. (1991). Adolescents at risk: A summation of work in the field: Programs and policies. Journal of Adolescent Health, 12, 630-637 Forest, L. and Brooks, L. (1993). Feminism and career assessment. Journal of Career Assessment, 3, 233-245 Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice. Cmabridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cited in: Madill,H. M., Ciccocioppo, A. Stewin, L. L., Armour, M., and Montgomerie, T. C., (2004). The Potential to Develop a Career in Science: Young Women’s Issues and Their Implications for Careers Guidance Initiatives. International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling, 26, 1-19 Hayes, R.L. (1994). Counselling in the post-modern world: Origins and implications of a constructivist developmental approach. Counselling and Human Development, 26, 1-12.

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Savickas, M. L. (1992). New directions in career assessment. In D. H. Montross & C. J. Shinkman (Eds). Career development: Theory and practice (pp.336-355). Springfield. IL: Charles C. Thomas. Savikas, M.L. (1994). Donald Edwin Super: The career of a planful explorer. The Career Development Quarterly, 43, 4-24 Shepard, B., & Marshall, A. (2000). Career development and planning issues for rural adolescent girls. Canadian Journal of Counselling, 34, 155-171 Steinpreis, R. E., Anders, K. A., Riley, M. G. Ritzke, D. M., & McDonald, T. W. (2000). The impact of gender on the quality and content of e-mail advice professors give to students applying to graduate school. Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, 6, 33-43 Unit for the Development of Adult Continuing Education (UDACE) (1986). The Challenge of Change. Leicester: National Institute of Adult Continuing Education. Snyder, W. U., (1945). "An Investigation of the Nature of Non-Directive Psychotherapy." Journal of General Psychology. 1, 33, 193-223. Super, D. E. (1990). A life span, life space approach to career development. In D. Brown & L. Brooks (Eds), Career choice and development (2nd Ed., pp. 197-261). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Vandenberg, R. J. & Self, R. M. (1993). Assessing Newcomers’ Changing Commitments to the Organization During the first 6 Months of Work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 4, 557-568 Watts, A. G., & Kidd, J. M. (2000). Guidance in the United Kingdom: past, present and future. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 28, 4, 485- 502. West, W. (2002). Some ethical dilemmas in counselling and counselling research. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 30, 3, 261-268 Wilgosh, L. (2002). Examining gender images, expectations and competence as perceived impediments to personal, academic and career development. International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling. 24, 239-260

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EXECUTIVE(SUMMARY(( What%was%the%purpose%of%this%work?%

•! To demonstrate an understanding of the mechanisms and technicalities involved in counselling.

•! Conduct research in to workplace counselling in a creative and ‘in-depth’ manner.

•! Specifically focus on one type of counselling situation

•! Simulate work and team based learning

How%was%this%achieved?%

•! Detailed review and evaluation of the literature

•! Comments on implications for practice (including ethical and confidentiality issues)

•! Clear distinctions drawn between advice, guidance and counselling with necessary skills discussed.