Recent research on women's lives has emphasized the complex interactions between situational constraints in the family and the workplace. To examine the relationship of situational variables and personality characteristics to career-related self-efficacy expectations and life satisfaction in women, 94 college women completed a questionnaire…

Westbrook (1983) challenged the validity of the construct "career maturity" because measures such as the Career Maturity Inventory Attitude Scale (Crites, 1973) correlate to measures of mental ability. Rather than interpreting this association as evincing lack of discriminant validity, the association should be interpreted as supporting…

This investigation, part of an on-going research program examining social learning theory applications to career development, tested several hypotheses derived from A. Bandura's self-efficacy theory in the career-related domain of mathematics. Specifically, the effects of failure on a mathematics task and on a task irrelevant to mathematics were…

Some researchers have suggested that there are developmental stages in adult life. If adult developmental stages exist, such stages would be reflected in one's career. Individuals would progress from their career dream when they first enter the work force through a period of stability, a mid-life transition period when they compare reality to…

While Holland's (1973) theory of personality types and vocational identity is widely used, the theory does not specify the developmental antecedents of the six personality types. To examine the relationship between membership in adolescent social cliques and vocational identity in early adulthood, four groups of college students (N=192)…

This paper focuses on methodological issues in designing and conducting a longitudinal study of teachers' careers, as being explored by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The paper outlines the need for data in four areas (teachers' worklives, teacher quality, the context of teaching, and teachers' career paths) and identifies…

To explicate the conditions under which black men and women have achieved success, using blacks as a legitimate population rather than as deviants from a majority group, factors related to academic and professional achievement by black men and women were explored. Sixty-four black professionals with doctoral degrees, including college professors,…

Previous research has shown that blacks tend to be concentrated in a narrow range of occupations. While social barriers are recognized as influencing this pattern, constricted patterns of career development also emerge in early exploratory stages prior to career choice. To investigate whether black students' level of vocational identity…

A study was conducted of the processes involved in adapting to a community college teaching career, which tends to consist of essentially the same duties and responsibilities throughout the period of employment without external boundaries demarking different career activities. The study employed an ethnographic methodology, involving in-depth…

As more women pursue professional careers, studies that examine the role of work in the development of women's identity are needed. To explore the developmental issues of women administrators in higher education, selected data were examined from a comprehensive study of 270 women in educational administration. Interviews related to career…

As more women enter the managerial ranks, organizations are finding it necessary to address the possibility of gender bias in managerial performance ratings. To investigate the existence of gender bias in managerial performance ratings as they relate to problem-solving strategies, 197 college students (46 percent female) and 127 managers (of those…

Although the problems facing dual-profession couples are almost universally acknowledged, studies on dual-profession couples have only recently emerged from those on dual-worker or dual-career families. To explore the perceptions that women in dual-profession marriages have of their roles, conflicts, and coping strategies, focus group interviews…

Women continue to be underrepresented in scientific and business careers, yet little is known about the impact of women's school experiences on their career development. To investigate how educational institutions encourage and discourage women entering scientific and business careers, 50 female college seniors in these majors were interviewed and…

Four symposium papers report the results of a longitudinal study of career development and life changes for a sample of 1,967 female college graduates in the Michigan Student Study who were studied in 1967, 1970 and 1981. The first of the papers, entitled "Where Are They Now? Career Outcomes for the Original Role-Innovators," by Sandra…

This case study examined three types of barriers that inhibit advances in academic careers by both women and minority group members. Specifically, it investigated: (1) structural barriers, formal and informal relationships important in gaining access to positions in academic settings and research and publication opportunities; (2) sociocultural…