Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Focuses attention on contextual interaction over the lifespan. Views individuals as products of an environment that is very inclusive but also unique. Ones career development is thought to be influenced and constructed within several environmental systems.
Focuses on individual behavior rather than on the behavior of groups of individuals that may provide a norm from which one judges their own career development. Based on the framework of bioecological system and constructivism.
It is a study of the relationship between person and environment. It provides detailed analysis of ongoing environmental influences over the lifespan. The developing person is viewed as being the center of an embedded in several environmental systems that interact with one another.
Five Environmental Systems: Microsystem-- the setting where an individual lives. It is the persons immediate relationships and activities. Mesosytem-- the set of interactions and relationships among all the elements of microsystem which affects the person. Exosystem-- Includes all the social settings that affect the individual, even though he/she is not a direct member of this system.
Bioecological System (Urie Bronfenbrenner) Five Environmental Systems: Macrosystem-- the larger society, which includes the attitudes/ideologies of the culture in which the individual lives. Chronosystem-- the patterning of environmental events and transitions over the life course. It includes effects created by time or critical periods in development and sociohistorical events.
Constructivism
Suggests that there is no fixed truth. Individuals construct their own way of organizing information and that truth of reality is a matter of perception. Supports the belief that individuals define themselves as they participate in events and relationships in their environment. Each individual develops personal constructs which defines his/her meaning of the world.
CONTEXTUALIST THEORY OF CAREER DEVELOPMENT (Young, Valach, & Collin) CAREER (Savickas) CONSTRUCTION THEORY
Posits that the only way to understand individuals is in the context of their environment as they experience it and make sense or meaning of the experience. Career-related behaviors are goal directed results of the individuals construction of the context in which they function. Study of action is its major focus.
Action taken with regard to career is a goaloriented series of behaviors that occur in a stream of behavior that is guided simultaneously by individuals and the social context of which they are a part. Action cognitively and socially directed everyday experiences which reflects each individuals social and cultural world. Three Perspectives: manifest behavior, internal processes, and social meaning
Suggests that individuals construct their own reality or truth. Careers are to be viewed from a developmental contextual viewpoint that focuses on ones adaptation to an environment through the development of inner structures.
Propositions:
Developmental Contextualism Development of Vocational Self-Concept Vocational Developmental Tasks
CAREER CONSTRUCTION THEORY DEVELOPMENTAL CONTEXTUALISM Includes core roles developed through an individuals life structure, preferences of life roles, and an individuals career patterns. Built from Bronfenbrenners bioecological model. To understand an individuals career choice and commitment is to understand and appreciate the inner constructs that give meaning to that individuals life roles.
CAREER CONSTRUCTION THEORY DEVELOPMENT OF VOCATIONAL SELF-CONCEPT Development of self-concept in childhood: collection of percepts that is neither integrated nor particularly coherent. Development of self-concept in adolescence: more unified and more coherent which permits the individuals to form some abstract self-descriptions. Development of self-concept in adulthood: more organized which forms self-perceptions that guide and control behavior.
CAREER CONSTRUCTION THEORY DEVELOPMENT OF VOCATIONAL SELF-CONCEPT Dimensions of self-concept: Vocational self-concept individuals perception of her or his personal attributes that are considered relevant to certain work roles. Self-concept dimensions assertiveness and gregariousness. It directs the content of alternative choices. Self-concept metadimensions consistency and stability. It directs the process of making a choice.