Today, young adults are expected to decide between educational, vocational, and job options and to make the best choice possible. Career literatures emphasize the importance of young adults' career decision making but also acknowledge the problems related to making these decisions. The authors argue that career counselors could support clients'…

This article presents the Chaos Theory of Careers with particular reference to the concepts of "attraction" and "attractors". Attractors are defined in terms of characteristic trajectories, feedback mechanisms, end states, ordered boundedness, reality visions and equilibrium and fluctuation. The identified types of attractors (point, pendulum,…

Mainstream theories of career have been charged with a lack of "critical, multidisciplinary, gendered, and contextualised work". This suggests that they would not readily be able to encompass the notion of the family-friendly career. This paper contextualises their shortcomings, notes some responses to them over time, and identifies some recent…

Examines the challenges to environmental professionals in seeking career enhancement during economic upturns and greater government regulations. (MDH)

Based on interviews with 65 adults, a theory was developed in which career is considered a vehicle for self-realization. Careers are viewed as a sequence of developmental stages: adjustment/reality shock, career success/self-affirmation, and reevaluation/congruence. (SK)

Traces Donald Super's theory of career development, studies modifications in Super's conceptualization of life stages, and notes changes in the definition and conception of the career construct. Includes 63 references. (JOW)

Highlights the relatively unexplored relationship between ordinary language explanations of career behavior and formal theories of career development. Classifies ordinary explanations of career behavior along two dimensions--extent to which explanations are founded in person or situation and extent to which they account for predictability.…

Until about two decades ago, researchers considered career maturity primarily in terms of adolescents who struggled with the tasks that, when successfully completed, resulted in a viable career choice. Previously it has been suggested that the term "career adaptability" should replace the term "career maturity" in the study of adult vocational…

To improve vocational psychology research, researchers should reconsider the meaning of career, adopt longitudinal designs for research on career development, and concentrate first on developmental processes and then on the context of careers. (SK)

Stories can be a valuable tool for the career researcher. Questions arise, though, about how best to approach stories analytically such that their insights can be fully realised. In this paper I apply cultural theorist Raymond Williams' analysis of cultural processes as dominant, residual and emergent (1977) to the narratives generated in a recent…

Struggling job seekers want to know what work will give meaning to the 40-plus years they spend at it and a measure of happiness. The author suggests that career practitioners and supervisors can help if they know who we are when, what someone is in the career game for, and how we decide where next to grow. This paper will review the career stage…

In this document the author provides a brief overview of A. Bandura's self-efficacy theory. The author also provides a discussion of the value of this theory to career counselors, which includes particularly useful features of the concept of self-efficacy and suggestions for its application in career assessment and counseling, with a special focus…

In this article I argue that we need a greater understanding of the role of emotion in career development and career management. Notions of careers as sequences of events and experiences and new relational approaches to organizational career development suggest opportunities for exploring the experience, expression, and management of emotion…

Portrays through lengthy interview quotations the interplay among work, self-development, and nonwork elements in one upwardly mobile educator's career. Reviews theoretical concepts and models of career dynamics useful in analyzing this interplay, discusses the concepts' implications for influencing educators' behavior, and suggests further…

In this paper the authors attempt to explain and sharpen unresolved issues and questions that have evolved in the study of careers, especially since the concept of "careers" has received increased theoretical and empirical attention across disciplines. The issues discussed involve (1) conceptualization and measurement of careers; (2)…