Introduction to career theory Tristram Hooley

What is career? Career is… the individual’s journey through life, learning and work.

So what is career guidance? career learning/career education/career counselling/careers advice? karriereveiledning?

OECD definition Career guidance refers to services and activities intended to assist individuals, of any age and at any point throughout their lives, to make educational, training and occupational choices and to manage their careers… The activities may take place on an individual or group basis, and may be face-to-face or at a distance (including help lines and web-based services). (OECD, 2004)

Hooley, Sultana & Thomsen definition Career guidance supports individuals and groups to discover more about work, leisure and learning and to consider their place in the world and plan for their futures. Key to this is developing individual and community capacity to analyse and problematise assumptions and power relations, to network and build solidarity and to create new and shared opportunities. It empowers individuals and groups to struggle within the world as it and to imagine the world as it could be. Career guidance can take a wide range of forms and draws on diverse theoretical traditions. But at its heart it is a purposeful learning opportunity which supports individuals and groups to consider and reconsider work, leisure and learning in the light of new information and experiences and to take both individual and collective action as a result of this.

Reflection Think about your own career. What/who have been the biggest influences on your career so far? What professional help have you received with your career?

Discussion In pairs discuss the influences on your career. What interventions/professional help would have been useful to you?

What is the purpose of career guidance/ karriereveiledning? In groups discuss the purpose of career guidance/ karriereveiledning for: The individual? The careers professional? The school/college/university? The government?

So…there are different interventions different ways that they can be done different reasons for doing them

How can theory help with this?

Theories make things simple It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience. Albert Einstein - On the Method of Theoretical Physics, the Herbert Spencer Lecture, Oxford, June 10, 1933.

A theory of theories Theories of career context Theories of career psychology Theories about careers work

Three important career theories Matching/ trait and factor theories Developmental theories Structuralism

Choosing a vocation (1909) No step in life, unless it may be the choice of a husband or wife, is more important than the choice of a vocation… You may not be able to get into the right line of work at first. You may have to learn your living for a while in any way that is open to you. But if you study yourself and get sufficient knowledge of various industries to determine what sort of work you are best adapted to, and then carefully prepare yourself for efficient service in that line, the opportunity will come for you to make use of the best that is you in your daily work.

Parsons’ method In the wise choice of a vocation there are three broad factors: a clear understanding of yourself, your aptitudes, abilities, interests, ambitions, resources, limitations and their causes; a knowledge of the requirements, and conditions of success, advantages and disadvantages, compensation, opportunities and prospects in different lines of work; true reasoning on the relations of these two groups of facts.

John Holland and RIASEC “…people tend to act on their dominant interests and seek occupations in which their interests can be expressed.” (Holland 1996: 400)

Discussion What do you think about these matching theories? What are the advantages and disadvantages of them? How could you/do you use them with your clients?

Developmentalism

Ginzberg et al.’s life stages Fantasy (up to 11) Tentative (11-17) Interest Capacity Value Realistic (17 onwards) Exploration Crystallisation Specification

Super’s life/career rainbow

Discussion What do you think about these developmental theories? What are the advantages and disadvantages of them? How could you/do you use them with your clients?

Structuralism

Paul Willis People make very few career choices. They work within the structures that they are presented with. This offers the illusion of choice and even of resistance. But actually most people end up following very predictable career paths.

Ken Roberts and ‘opportunity structure’ What is the role for career guidance within these constraints?

Discussion What do you think about these structural theories? What are the advantages and disadvantages of them? How could you use them with your clients?

Which of these theories do you find most useful?

In conclusion Theory tries to explain what career is and how it works. It also tries to explain how career guidance should respond to this. The different theories inform each other. They are not closed boxes. But you need to be careful about how you combine them together.

References Ginzberg, E., Ginsburg, S. W., Axelrad, S., & Herma, J. L. (1951). Occupational choice: An approach to a general theory. New York: Columbia University Press. Holland, J.L. (1997). Making vocational choices Hooley, T., Sultana, R.G. and Thomsen, R. (2017). The neoliberal challenge to career guidance - mobilising research, policy and practice around social justice. In Hooley, T., Sultana, R.G. and Thomsen, R. (Eds.) Career guidance for social justice: Contesting neoliberalism. London: Routledge. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2004). Career guidance and public policy: Bridging the gap. Paris: OECD. Parsons, F. (1909). Choosing a Vocation. Roberts, K. (1977). The social conditions, consequences and limitations of career guidance’, British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 5, 1-9. Super, D.E. (1990) A life-span, life-space approach to career development. In Brown, D. Brooks, L. & Associates (Eds.). Career Choice and Development. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp197-261. Willis, P. (1977). Learning to labour. Farnborough: Saxon House.

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