This document, the first of two volumes, contains papers that represent recent work in career development research at Harvard University. The purpose of the papers is to review, clarify, and offer a critical commentary on several issues crucial to current research and to emphasize a point of view from which important resources of conceptual analysis can be brought to bear on the issues. Section I, Developmental Context, and Section II, "Stock Taking" include the following chapters: (1) The Harvard Studies in Career Development: Retrospect and Prospect, (2) Decision and Vocational Development: a Paradigm and its Implications, (3) The Self-Concept: A Critical Analysis, (4) Self as Process, (5) The Self-Concept: A Construct in Transition, (6) From Self-Concept to Personal Determination in Career Development, (7) Occupational Psychology and Guidance in Education; Foundations For a Language in Career Development, (8) Personally Determined Career and Entrepreneurial Behavior: Annotated Texts and Contexts, (9) Current Findings: Precursors of New Directions, and (10) Creativity and Career. Volume II, a continuation of these papers, is available as VT 013 233. (GEB)