Racial/ethnic minority vocational research: a content and trend analysis across 36 years.

The authors examined 281 racial/ethnic minority (REM) career-related studies published in the Journal of Vocational Behavior, The Career Development Quarterly (CDQ), the Journal of Career Assessment (JCA), and the Journal of Career Development between 1969 and 2004. Publication trends, article content and type, samples, and leading author and institutional contributors are reported. CDQ published the largest percentage of these articles (33.5%, n = 94), whereas JCA had the largest percentage (13%) of REM career articles relative to other articles it published during this time frame. There was an increase in the number of REM career articles being published across the years.

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The increasing diversification in the U.S. general population has been widely documented. At the same time these demographic changes have occurred, there has been a greater representation of diversity within institutional settings such as the labor force and educational environments (Fullerton, 1997; U.S. Department of Labor, 2005). Concomitantly, there is evidence that multicultural issues are being addressed with greater frequency in counseling and that multicultural vocational psychology is gaining strength as a viable area of study (e.g., Byars & McCubbin, 2001; Leong, 1994). However, data regarding the trends and changes in the scholarly literature focusing on the career development of racial/ethnic minorities (REMs) spanning several decades are not well documented. Such information may enhance understanding of career development research with REMs and inform multicultural career counseling practice. Thus, the present study provides the most comprehensive analysis of the multicultural career development research to date by conducting an analysis of racial ethnic minority (REM) career research published in four professional career journals from 1969 to 2004.

Given the importance of research in understanding the career development of REMs in educational and work settings, an overview of the research conducted in this area is essential. The present study seeks to address the limitations in prior studies and to fill in the gaps of knowledge. Specifically, we examine articles published across 36 years in four professional journals and address the following research questions: (a) How much research on the career development of REMs is being conducted? (b) What proportion of articles focus on REM career development for the respective journals? (c) Have the publication trends in REM career research changed significantly over the years? (d) What content areas are being addressed in this area of research? (e) What are the characteristics of the samples being used in these studies? and (f) Who are the scholars and what institutions are contributing to this research area?

An analysis of articles provides a meaningful way to examine the state of affairs of a journal or field (Buboltz, Miller, & Williams, 1999; Hill, Nutt, & Jackson, 1994) and is useful for understanding the development of a research area. In the past, content analysis studies have examined trends of career development research in The Career Development Quarterly (CDQ) and the Journal of Vocational Behavior (JVB; Buboltz, Ebberwein, Watkins, & Savickas, 1995), REM research in counseling (Carter, Akinsulure-Smith, Smailes, & Clauss, 1998; Perez, Constantine, & Gerard, 2000; Ponterotto, 1988), and career development research with REMs (Byars & McCubbin, 2001; Hoyt, 1989; Koegel, Donin, Ponterotto, & Spitz, 1995). Each of these studies analyzed published articles in professional journals, and the findings provided opportunities for the profession to reflect on the current or past "states of the field" and to consider areas of potential development. These studies are limited, however, in that their findings were restricted to one or two journals or a short time span.

Researchers have documented the dearth of empirical articles focusing on the career development of diverse REM groups. Specifically, Hoyt (1989) reviewed articles published in CDQ from 1968 to 1986 and reported that only 2% (n = 22) of the articles pertained to the career development of Blacks, whereas less than 1% (n = 5) focused on all other REM groups combined. Compared with Yungman's (1972) earlier content analysis of the first 16 volumes of the same journal, Hoyt's content analysis found that there was a significant increase in the number of articles on Blacks but no change in the number of articles on other REMs. Relative to the content of all articles published in CDQ across both of these studies, the percentage of articles focusing on diverse REM groups was quite small.

In an analysis of CDQ JVB, and the Journal of Employment Counseling (JEC) across 8 years (1985-1992), Koegel et al. (1995) found that 14% of the articles published during this time focused on U.S. REM and international issues. JVB published the highest percentage of multicultural articles during this period, followed by CDQ and JEC. They indicated that almost 60% of these articles were quantitative, and work-related values and preferences was the topical category most commonly addressed across these studies. In addition, Koegel et al. reported that among the empirical articles, international samples and college students were the most frequently investigated type of multicultural population and sample used, respectively. In addition, a critique of the methodological design of these studies was reported.

A related study by Byars and McCubbin (2001) examined REM career research from 1994 to 1999 across a number of journals from associated disciplines as well as conference papers. Like Koegel et al. (1995), Byars and McCubbin found that the majority of articles were empirical studies (83%), with an increase in the number of qualitative studies. Again, JVB published a higher percentage of REM career articles in relation to other journals. The two most frequently identified topical foci were (a) occupational perceptions, expectations, and interests and (b) occupational goals. Finally, African Americans and college students were the most frequently studied REM group and sample, respectively.

In another study, Arbona (1990) identified 29 articles across nine counseling, vocational, and multicultural journals between 1970 and 1990 that addressed career issues among Latino/as. More recently, Perez et al. (2000) reported that 12% of articles published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology (JCP) from 1988 to 1997 focused on racial and ethnic issues, and of those, 16% attended to career issues of diverse racial and ethnic groups. The findings reported by Koegel et al. (1995), Perez et al., and Arbona suggest that a number of studies in the multicultural vocational area are being published in the selected professional journals. However, whether these statistics indicate a significant growth in the development of multicultural vocational psychology research has yet to be determined because of the inconsistencies in the journals investigated and the lag time between periods that were investigated.

Understanding the publication trends in the career development of REMs may provide important information in understanding counseling as a profession, as well as its specialty area of vocational development. Although previous studies have examined general counseling and vocational psychology research trends, and more specifically, REM career development research trends, these studies had a relatively small scope with regard to years and/or journals examined. In addition, none of the prior studies that examined multicultural career development reported trends across years. Thus, the purpose of this study was to provide a broad examination of published articles that addressed the career development of U.S. REMs across the following four vocational journals: JVB, CDQ the Journal of Career Assessment (JCA), and the Journal of Career Development (JCD). The four vocational journals were chosen because they focus solely on career issues and are recognized and widely used by career counseling professionals. In this study, we were interested in (a) investigating trends across time within and across professional journals in the number of articles focusing on the career development of REMs, (b) identifying the major constructs investigated in these articles, (c) describing the types of articles most often published and the characteristics of samples used in empirical articles, and (d) examining individual and institutional productivity.

Method

Journals