Integrating perspectives in career development theory and practice. (Articles).

Furthermore, because various social conditions are always recognized and given a great deal of attention as an important part of the total context, the sociological perspective on work and career synthesized by Hotchkiss and Borow (1996) seems to be a relevant part for the contextual explanation of career. Factors such as family status, socioeconomic structure, labor markets, and race and gender effects are critical contents that need to be addressed and understood in forming a comprehensive and integral context of career development. Thus, it may be quite feasible to incorporate the sociological perspective into the process of contextual meaning making and meaning interpretation.

In career counseling interventions, the counselor can help the client explore a range of options in forming a broad context for exploration and action. First, career counselors can help clients increase their awareness concerning the important impact of environmental conditions on their life career development. Counselors can provide clients with opportunities to describe and analyze pros and cons of the environmental conditions. More attention may be directed to understanding these contextual variables, using advantages, and turning adversity into more optimal situations. For example, involuntary and unprepared job loss causes considerable turbulence in an individual's life. The cons of this situation may include financial hardship, worry and uncertainty about the future, and feelings of low self-esteem. These cons certainly need to be acknowledged in the counseling encounter; the counseling process should facilitate the client's ability to see the pros under this seemingly very difficult circumstance. The p ros may include gaining the time to pursue a long-time interest that has not been realized, retraining to fulfill oneself, preparing for a new career path, and becoming more creative and self-reliant in one's profession (e.g., becoming self-employed). In some situations of this kind, a strong message from the counselor to the client is "Congratulations, you said good-bye to your old job. This is because you may use this occasion as a door to a range of new opportunities." Of course, this kind of message must be used in a prudent and skillful manner and at the proper time during the counseling encounter. Also, it may not be an appropriate encounter for every client in a job loss situation. The career counselor needs to be very sensitive and knowledgeable about the counseling context (e.g., the client's psychological state, the client--counselor relationship, and the phase of the intervention).

Second, career counselors can encourage clients to gain more knowledge of the world of work, including information concerning occupational environments, as defined by Holland (1997), and other demands of the work world, as delineated by the theory of work adjustment (Dawis, 1996). Vocational assessment based on objectivist ideology can be integrated as a part of the useful information for connecting oneself to past, present, and prospective career contexts. Thus, contextual meaning making becomes more concrete and attainable.

Third, career counselors can encourage clients to consider social influences that affect their career planning and decision-making context. These influences, which are documented by a sociological perspective of work (Hotchkiss & Borow, 1996), include variables such as family influence, level of education, gender, race, socioeconomic status, and labor market demands. There is no doubt that current social, economic, political, and technological changes in the general society help to shape the macro context of the world of work. To clarify and understand these contextual variables are important tasks in the career counseling process. Career counselors can help clients connect their personal, familial, socioeconomic, cultural, and other associated situations to their particular context of work life coping and vocational exploration. A goal of the counseling process is to help the client gain more awareness of contextual influences and transferable skills in coping with contextual situations and factors. In doing so, the context becomes more explicit and comprehensive when the client tries to make sense of his or her career issues. Consequently, a well-defined context can make the meaning interpretation in career exploration more insightful, coherent, and holistic.

Concluding Comments

In the foregoing discussion, I presented three kinds of considerations regarding the potentiality of theoretical integration in career development theory and practice. These possibilities conceive career as self-realization, growing experiences, and context conceptualization. Although these possibilities are stimulated by the continuing interest of theory convergence in career development and counseling, they attempt to "integrate" rather than "converge" tenets from different theoretical approaches and models. The notion of integration proposes a flexible and eclectic relationship between theories, in general, and between the two major schools of thinking--positivism and constructivism--in particular.

This integration does not attempt to make concepts from different theories look more unified. Rather, it considers positively the continuing existence and development of different theoretical viewpoints in the career field. The richness of these varied views has been and will be the resource for new insights. Integration in this sense is about building bridges between different theories, that is, theories within the same school of thinking as well as theories from different schools of thinking. Also, the integration remains situational and contextual. That is, the integration may vary when the context regarding a career issue (e.g., place, timing, needs, challenges, perspectives, intention, and perceptions) changes. This suggests that the integrative relationship in career theories is not static, but open, dynamic, interactive, multifaceted, and evolving. With a tentative and flexible stance, theory integration may engender more creative utilization of varied theoretical concepts that complement, supplement, or support one another. Consequently, creative and thoughtful integration will not only invigorate theory building but will also more effectively guide and enhance career development practice.

Substantial variances exist among theories, especially regarding the philosophical differences between the more traditional objectivist and the newly evolving constructivist schools of thinking. Although such differences may remain in the realm of career development theory and practice, I believe that it is time for scholars and practitioners to adopt a more open and broader scope in viewing people's life career development. The three loosely framed considerations of theory integration illustrated in this article are only some of the possibilities for further exploration. By adopting a flexible macro perspective, many more possibilities may be generated for advancing and enriching theory and practice.

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