The influence of Communism on career development and education in Romania.

Contemporary career counseling research has awakened career counselors to the reality that their theories of development, assessment, and intervention have been constructed within the capitalistic structure of the late-20th-century labor force in the United States. The social transition model of career counseling outlined by M. Pope (2000) has identified changes in developmental theory, assessment techniques, and intervention strategies, reflecting changes in U.S. culture in the new millennium. With the career counselor's focus on enhancing multicultural awareness, cultural sensitivity, and globalization, this project presents the societal forces within a Communist environment that influenced the career development process, illustrated by a case history.

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Career counseling has experienced a rich developmental journey through the 90-year evolution from initial vocational guidance movement, which described the shift from an agrarian society to an industrial society, to the contemporary career development models, which attempt to encompass the rapid changes in the United States' technological, change-driven corporate world. Pope (2000) has conceptualized a social transitions stage model describing the changes in the brief history of career counseling in the United States. He identified six stages, ranging from the initial job placement focus to the current focus on technology and changing demographics, internationalization and multicultural dimensions, and the school-to-job transition. In developing a vision for the future of career counseling, Parmer and Rush (2003) boldly suggested that career professionals "suffer from enclosing [themselves] within a cocoon of pretend reality" (p. 28). They explained that, as early as 1962, Wrenn described that this reality is based on the assumption that "the present is enduring" and "is based upon the past and the known, upon seeing that which is as though it would always be" (p. 445). Parmer and Rush alerted career counselors that, with the rapid trends of globalization, current "work and career terminology may not be reflective of thinking from the perspective of local and global arenas" (p. 28).

Parmer and Rush (2003) continued by explaining that work is a universal phenomenon. All cultures have opportunities for individuals to find productive labor that helps to provide self-definition and identity. However, they reminded career counselors that it is imperative for them to understand the cultural context or fabric in which this work plan is developed. Parmer and Rush shared the experience of a Peace Corps volunteer serving in Africa who quickly learned that the Western model of career counseling would not be an applicable template for individuals socialized in cultures with very different societal work norms and standards.

Contemporary career development theories have focused on person--environment fit, human development, and social learning as the foundation for Western models of career formation and counseling interventions. Chung (2003) awakened career counselors to the reality that these theories incorporate the values and views of the modern industrial era and are established on a hierarchical model characteristic of large organizations in the United States in the past century. Osipow and Fitzgerald (1996) noted that "the question of career development in other cultures is ignored" (p. 328). After reviewing the articles published in 2004 in the major American career journals, Guidon and Richmond (2005) also concluded, "What we have not learned enough about is career work ... with people whose cultural experience is vastly different from that of first-world nations" (p. 128).

With the challenges of Wrenn (1962) and the reinvigorating of this challenge by Parmer and Rush, career counselors need to broaden the competencies of cultural awareness in order to leave the cocoon of "cultural encapsulation" (Parmer & Rush, 2003, p. 26). This project attempts to enlarge career counselors' sphere by presenting the cultural influences on career development within a Communist country and illustrates these unique influences with a case study of a young man raised in Communist Romania.

Communist Principles Influencing Education and Career Development

After World War II, Eastern European countries, including Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania, were forced to change their social, political, and economic standards to a radical system designed and imposed by the Soviet Union. Prior to the introduction of Communist principles, these Eastern European societies had identified themselves largely with Western Europe's cultural, religious, and intellectual heritage (Brzezinski, 1989). The new political and governmental transitions put specific imprints on these societies' cultures, causing challenging transformations. Brzezinski commented that

cultural superiority, even if reluctantly and secretly acknowledged

by those dominated, was a critical factor in the ability of the

Roman or British or French empires to endure for so long. In

contrast, the Soviet empire is viewed in Eastern Europe--rightly or

wrongly--as retrogressive subjugation by a culturally inferior

nation. Thus, even forty years after Stalin's imposition of Soviet

rule, the Eastern European societies still chafe under their

Communist regimes. (p. 105)

Engels (1914/1923) envisioned a classless "communal society" (p. 21) in which the strategy, the means, and the results of production belong to society as a whole. The starting point in creating this new social order he called Communism was the management of material resources with the abolition of private property. In Engel's view, the economic reorganization paralleled the management of human resources, as the needs of each individual became closely linked to the needs of the society. One of the first direct consequences to the massive social restructuring that had as a goal the creation of a classless, communal society was the emphasis on obedience and conformity.

Studies on the historical and cultural context of career development in East Germany and China emphasize strikingly similar principles and processes with the ones observed in Romania and the Soviet Union, given that obedience and conformity were vital to the successful functioning of each of these Communist societies (Pinquart, Juang, & Silbereisen, 2004; Zhang, Hu, & Pope, 2002). Article 10 of the former Romanian work code (Codul Muncii Republicii Socialiste Romania, 1973), for example, stipulated that work relationships be based on "the free acceptance of and constant conformity to the socialist work discipline" (p. 13). The spirit and tone of this principle is still reflected in the present Constitution of the Communist Party of China, adopted on November 14, 2002:

Party members must adhere to the principle that the interests of the

Party and the people stand above everything else, subordinating

their personal interests to the interests of the Party and the

people, being the first to bear hardships and the last to enjoy

comforts, working selflessly for the public interests and working to

contribute more. (para. 31)

The developmental plan required personal sacrifices and censored any expression of dissatisfaction or criticism. The influence of Western psychological or philosophical insights was interpreted as a destabilizing force that represented the potential for ideological overturn, and thinking "outside the lines" (Brzezinski, 1989, p. 52) risked being declared subversive. The educational curriculum was carefully selected to represent the socialist ideology, and the import of Western books (especially on psychology or philosophy) was severely restricted. Brzezinski explained, "Philosophical debates were inherently incompatible with a doctrine that saw itself as a closed system containing scientifically correct answers to all social dilemmas" (p. 152).

Political centralism was accompanied by cultural centralism. Each of the Eastern European countries, along with China, used a centralized plan of government aligned to the same Communist principles represented by the Soviet Union (Pinquart et al., 2004; Zhang et al., 2002). In Romania, the construction of a centralized economic system had two primary objectives: the industrialization of the economy and the establishment of socialism (Bachman, 1989). The plan for industrialization identified the working class as the ruling force, requiring a rigid outline that nominated the number of workers needed in each sector of the work environment. The educational focus was on expanding the working class, and the slots open in the educational system reflected this strategy.