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CHAPTER 9
LATE ADOLESCENT AND ADULT CAREER DEVELOPMENT
Super’s two major concepts – life role and life stage (values are also important)
ROLE SALIENCE
People have differences in terms of the importance of work to them.
Importance of work can also vary depending on their state in life.
Salience Inventory – measures 3 aspects of life roles: commitment, participation, and value
expectations.
Super’s rainbow illustrates life roles.
Life roles measured by Salience Inventory listed below:
Life Roles
Studying
• Includes a number of activities: during school years – courses, school, studying at
Working
• May start in childhood (e.g. babysitting, mowing lawn, etc.).
Community Service
• Includes broad range of voluntary service groups (e.g. social, political, or religious).
Home and Family
• Varies greatly depending on age of individual.
Leisure Activities
• Nature and importance of leisure varies considerably throughout life.
For adults, leisure activities become more sophisticated and intellectual (i.e. theatre,
books, stocks and bonds, etc.).
Liptak’s Leisure Theory of Career Development: leisure is a substitute for work as a way
of trying out new activities, importance of play throughout the lifespan, shows
significance of leisure in a variety of life stages, leisure plays a more important role in
career development than work (especially in beginning and end of lifespan).
• Early childhood – parents are important influence in development of play and
curiosity.
Indicators of the Salience of Life Roles
Nature of involvement changes throughout a person’s life.
Involvement is measured in terms of:
• Participation - measures actual behavior of a person.
• Commitment - future plans, a desire to be active.
Ability utilization – using one’s skills and knowledge
Achievement – feeling that one has produced good results
Aesthetics – finding beauty in the role one chooses
Altruism – helping others with problems
Autonomy – independent and working on your own
Creativity – discovering or designing new things
The Values Scale also includes authority, personal development, social relations, cultural identity,
physical prowess, economic security. It was updated by Zytowski (2004) and is called Super’s Work
Values Inventory-revised.
ADULT LIFE STAGES
Both age-related (there are typical times when people go through the stages) and NOT age-related
(also possible to experience each stage at almost any time during their lifetime).
Minicycle – Describes the growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance, and disengagement
that can occur within any of the stages in the maxicycle
Basic Stages of Career Development, including Arnett’s emerging adulthood stage
Exploration – 15 to 25 years old, the efforts that individuals make to get a better idea of
occupational information, choose career alternatives, decide on occupations, and start to work.
Crystallizing – clarify what they want to do, learn about entry-level jobs, typically high
Emerging Adulthood-(Arnett)-Adults about 20 to 30 years old. Five features that mark the
transition from adolescence to adulthood. These include career development as well as other
issues.
Age of identity- people are making important choices about love and work
Age of instability- people are changing jobs and trying out new types of work, as well as
changing romantic partners
Establishment - 25 to 45, getting established in one’s work by starting in a job that is likely to
mean the start of working life, work in an occupation that will probably be steady for many
years, for semi- and unskilled workers, it refers to the person who works for much of his or her
lifetime.
Stabilizing - settling down in a job and being able to meet those job requirements that will
ensure that a person can stay in the field in which he started, apprehensive about whether
Maintenance - 45 to 65, not advancing, but maintaining their status in work. Find out how their
work will change in the future.
Holding - some level of success has been attained, concerned with holding onto the position
that they have.
Disengagement - continue to use their mental capacities for growth and at the same time
disengage from various activities (e.g. work).
Deceleration - slowing down one’s work responsibility (i.e. finding easier ways to do work or
Retirement Living - late 60’s, leisure, home/family, and community service becomes more
important than work.
Recycling - Not everyone follows stages in a neat orderly outline, may reenter any stage at any
time.
SUPER’S LIFE STAGES OF WOMEN
Seven career patterns for women:
• Stable homemaking career pattern - get married soon after school and do not work.
• Conventional career pattern - enter work after high school or college, but after marrying,
they are full-time homemakers.
• Unstable career pattern - drop out of workforce, return, drop out, return.
Others suggest ways to manage careers, such as making decisions decision with partner.
Bardwick - Bardwick described typical experiences of women at various points in their adult life.
• Many women between 30 to 40 who have been involved in a career are concerned with not
wanting to delay having children any longer.
• Ecological perspective focuses on relationship between women and their environment.
LIFE STAGES OF CULTURALLY DIVERSE ADULTS
Minority Identity Development (Atkinson, et al.)
• Conformity - prefer majority culture
COUNSELOR ISSUES
Be aware of life stages of counselor in contrast to that of the client.
