Challenges for career counseling in Asia: Variations in cultural accommodation.

What are the major implications if such models are imported into Asian countries, which often have a greater emphasis on collectivism, without cultural accommodation? As illustrated by the articles in this special section, Western models of career counseling and career development have been exported to different countries with varying degrees of cultural accommodation to local conditions and cultural differences. The purpose of this article and this entire issue is to encourage us, as a profession, to begin to systematically examine the implications of a career counseling enterprise that is dominated by Western models and theories. As we ponder the advantages and disadvantages of a profession that is dominated by one major cultural orientation, we need to be mindful of the need to evaluate the "unintended consequences" of the exportation of our theories and models. In this article, I have also proposed that a cultural accommodation approach is a fruitful method for the exportation of our career counseling mo dels and theories to other countries and other cultures. What to accommodate for and how to make those accommodations should become the focus of our future inquiry as we career counselors and career researchers embark on this new millennium.

References

Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture's consequeces: International differences in work-related values. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Holland, J. L. (1985). Vocational Preference Inventory manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.

Leong, F. T. L. (1996). Towards an integrative model for cross-cultural counseling and psychotherapy. Applied and Preventive Psychology, 5, 189-209.

Leong, F. T. L., Austin, J. T., Sekaran, U., & Komarraju, M. (1998). An evaluation of the cross-cultural validity of Holland's theory: Career choices by workers in India. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 52, 441-455.

Leong, F. T. L., & Santiago-Rivera, A. (1999). Climbing the multiculturalism summit: Challenges and pitfalls. In P. Pedersen (Ed.), Multiculturalism as a fourth force (pp. 61-72). Philadelphia: Brunner/Mazel.

Leong, F. T. L., & Serafica, F. (2001). Cross-cultural perspective on Super's career development theory: Career maturity and cultural accommodation. In F. T. L. Leong & A. Barak's (Eds.), Contemporary models in vocational psychology: A volume in honor of Samuel H. Osipow (pp. 167-205). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Leong, F. T. L., & Tang, M. (in press). A cultural accommodation approach to career assessment with Asian Americans. In K. Kurasaski, S. Sure, & S. Okazaki (Eds.), Asian American mental health: Assessment, theories and methods. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

Lewin, K. (1938). The conceptual representation and the measurement of psychological forces. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Lewin, K. (1975). Field theory in social science: Selected theoretical papers. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Maslow, A. H. (1970). Motivation and personality (2nd ed.). New York: Harper & Row. Sinha, D. (1993). Indigenization of psychology in India and its relevance, In U. Kim & J. W. Berry (Eds.) Indigenous psychologies: Research and experience in cultural context (pp. 30-43). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Triandis, H. (1994). Culture and social behavior. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Frederick T. L. Leong is a professor in the Department of Psychology at The Ohio State University in Columbus. An earlier version of this article was given as a keynote presentation at the National Career Development Association convention in Portland, Oregon, June 29th-July 4th, 1999. Correspondence regarding this article should be sent to Frederick T. L. Leong, The Ohio State University, Department of Psychology, 1885 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210 (e-mail: leong.10@osu.edu).

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