Career Development in Childhood

Elementary Counselors Challenges

• Often not a focus in elementary schools• Career discussion often happens in the

classroom for younger children• Often does not get recognized until much later• Developmental approach can work

Super’s Model of Career Development

Super believes children develop self concept through:

• Planfulness

• Career Decision Making

• Time Perspective

Curiosity

• Interests are developed from exploration during activities and from impressions of role models.

• Curiosity can be prompted by things like hunger, loneliness, or other stimuli.

• Curiosity can be disruptive. (encouraging curiosity while discouraging disruptive behavior can be a challenge!)

• It is not important that curiosity have a career component at an early age.

Exploration

• Curiosity is a need; exploration is a behavior• When exploration is thwarted, the child may

experience conflict and have less to do with peers, adults, and school subjects.

• A withdrawn child will have difficulty developing vocational maturity because interests and information about career activities will be missing.

Information

PiagetSensory motor: respond to objects

Pre-operational: learn basic operationsConcrete operational: seeing things in concrete terms

Formal operational: thinking abstractly

EriksonIndustry vs inferiority stage: sense of achievement and are

organizing and applying information.

Key Figures

• People who work in areas that children can observe and are interested in are key figures.

• Children will imitate the behaviors of these figures and this is an aspect in the development of self-concept.

Internal vs external controlDeveloping a balance between self control and external control

can be a counseling goal.Self control plays into career planning as it helps their awareness

of their likes and dislikes.

Development of Interests

• Young children see no barriers• Children see themselves (self concept) by how

they view themselves in relation to their environment.

• Encouraging their interests is important to developing career maturity

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-gQLqv9f4o

Time Perspective

• It is difficult for young children to develop a sense of the future

• For counselors it may be unrealistic to expect children to begin planning ahead.

• Counselors can continue to discuss jobs, interests, and exploration.

Self-Concept and Planfulness

• Super ties self-concept to vocational development.

• Interactions with family, friends, and at school are what develops a child’s self-concept.

• Children develop perceptions based on characteristics and comments from key figures, peers, and media.

Using Super’s Model

• Discussing the child’s exploratory behaviors, experiences at school, and interactions with key figures.

• Respond helpfully in context of the situation!

Gottfredson’s Theory

• Individuals create themselves as they interact with the environment

• Cognitive development plays in vocational choice

• Genetic factors play a role: intellect, personality, and interests

• Internal Compass: interaction between biological self and experiences in the world

Circumscription and Compromise

• Circumscription: young people eliminate alternatives they feel won’t work for them.

• Compromise: young people give up alternatives they may like for ones they think may fit them better.

Cognitive Growth

• Gottfredson uses Bloom’s Taxonomy to describe the learning process

• It can help in understanding the child’s capacity to deal with career issues!

Self-Creation

• Gottfredson believes we are active participants between our biological selves and the environment.

• Interests are influenced by our world• We develop Traits as we repeat experiences• As children grow, they become more active in

choosing, directing, and understanding the environment.

Circumscription’s 4 Stages

• Size and Power: Children associate things concretely in relation to occupations. (hammers, bulldozers, trucks, etc.)

• Sex Roles: Children become aware of gender and can determine that some occupations are tolerable or not.

• Social Valuation: Children become aware of social class and develop tolerable level boundary which affects their pursuit of occupations based on whether family would find it acceptable or not.

• Internal Unique Self: Teenagers begin to see “the bigger picture” and try to determine which careers are most preferred and accessible.

Compromise

• Learning to let go of some preferred careers

1. Lower aspirations2. Close to decision time3. Following advice from others

3 areas of difficulty in Compromise!

• Lack of Information!!! hard to find, out of date, I’m to lazy!

• Lack of Background or Information!!! shadow, volunteer, take a course

• Lack of willingness to take risks!!! kids tend to choose based on familiarity, sex type, prestige,

and acceptability.

Role of Occupational Information

• Counselors can integrate career/work programs and information

• Teachers can show films or do projects about careers and jobs

• Community business and career visits or filed trips