It is helpful to look at the dominant schools of thought in the field of vocational psychology, career development and guidance and to understand how the field has developed since its inception in 1909. My objective here is not to critique or provide a detailed review of the field of career
development and guidance but to demonstrate the dominance of certain ideas in the development of career-based policy, initiatives and programs that provide further understanding as to how they eventuated14.
The field of career development and guidance has developed since the early 1900s to incorporate methodological approaches embedded in psychology, human development and sociology, and in some instances more than one discipline. The publication of Frank Parson’s Choosing a Vocation (1909) initiated the field of career counselling and was based in a model focusing on individual
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It is also acknowledged that each theoretical approach has had varying degrees of influence on career education and career counselling, both aspects of career guidance (Patton 2005b).
25 differences. The emphasis was placed on matching an individual’s personal traits to occupations. Indeed, ideas associated with the approach would not seem out of place in discussions in the field today (McIlveen & Patton 2006).
Psychological approaches popular in the 1980s saw the emergence of personality or behavior being matched to career choices. This approach, in particular Holland’s Theory of Vocational Personalities in Work Environments model and subsequent reviews, conceptualises occupational choice as an expression of personality and suggests that particular personalities match certain occupations and their characteristics(Holland 1959, 1997). Holland’s theory focuses on an individual’s interaction with their environment and explores how both individual and environmental characteristics result in vocational choices and adjustments. By adolescence most individuals come to resemble a
combination of six vocational personalities.
Addressing the limitations associated with the more static trait and factor approach gave rise to the more recent shift to the developmentally focused person-environment fit approach. Whilst the person-fit approach was based on assumptions found in the trait-factor approach such as that people make rational decisions, that people and work environments differ in consistent ways and that greater congruence between characteristics and job requirements leads to greater success, it did acknowledge the influences of both individual and environment on each other, and viewed the process as one of continual change (Super 1953, 1969, 1990).
At the same time an emphasis emerged that included life/career stages, and career patterns and trajectories. These developmental perspectives were most interested in how individuals navigate through developmental milestones, with cognitive growth and development being instrumental to the development of occupational conceptions of self (Gottfredson 1981). Social-cognitive
perspectives also began to gain prominence with their emphasis on personal agency and learning, and a focus on the role that self-efficacy has in the career decision-making process (Lent, Brown & Hackett 1994).
More recently, literature and theories based on a constructivist approach emphasising life themes, relationship, story and meaning making, and adopting a narrative approach have been advocated (Colin & Young 2000; McIlveen & Schultheiss 2012; McMahon & Patton 2000; Savickas 2002). Such an approach takes a critical stance, acknowledging the historical and cultural specificity of
26 career development theory has remained heavily influenced by a positivist view for most of its history, with the constructivist view only gaining influence in recent years (Patton & McMahon 2014). Although there has been a continual development of career development theories since its inception as a field, there are core elements which are found across most theories. The first element is the individual, whilst other elements are the importance of individual traits such as values,
personality and interests.
While current policy draws on some of these theories15 there is a major limitation which whilst being acknowledged in the literature, has not filtered through to current policy. This is the recognition that there has been ‘too little attention paid in both the theoretical and practical literature to groups outside the white western able bodied middle class male’ (Patton & McMahon 2006, p. 113) and failure to cite the recent and growing body of literature that acknowledges the influence of gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. To address these limitations specific theories have been developed to explain career development issues within these groups, providing a sociological perspective to career development.
This sociological perspective on career development suggests that the socialisation process that an individual is exposed to outweighs their individual characteristics and therefore that to be able to understand people’s aspirations and career development we need to look at the social constructs influencing the individual. Rather than focusing on motivations or aspirations, the issue is the mismatch between young people’s preparedness and their skills, suggesting that the key factor in career success is not about willingness to work but rather readiness to work. This suggests that the focus should be on matching an individual’s desire to work with appropriate employment
opportunities (Sinclair, McKendrick & Scott 2010).
Irving (2010) suggests that career education is moving towards the presentation of notions ‘in which individuals, not organisations or society, are responsible for the self-management and negotiation of employment opportunities’ (Irving 2010, p. 55). He argues that career education fails to connect with the social studies curriculum (Irving 2010) and that:
career education discourse has continued to present young people with the simple illusions that if they ‘work hard’, pursue their passions, take personal responsibility for their own
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The National Career Development Strategy in particular outlines the necessity to move away from a static trait and factor approach to career development towards a whole-of-life approach which incorporates a career journey. By viewing career development through this lens the strategy outlines how initiatives will be adjusted to provide information and support services to a broader age group.
27 futures, and develop the ‘right’ attitudes and competencies, success will follow. Thus, failure to succeed is constructed as due to lack of individual tenacity and or personal attributes.
(Irving 2010, p. 57)
Consequently ‘career education practices only rarely aim at enhancing equality of opportunity, of lessening social inequity or enhancing collective development actions ... career education is focused on the individual (and) tends to ignore society or community’ (p. 56). Discussions about the
influence of social class, ‘race’, culture, gender and sexuality, and why discrimination occurs are missing in career education (Irving 2010). Irving (2010) goes on to argue that if career education is to effectively assist students to shape their individual and collective lives, and to find their way in an increasingly fragmented world, an inclusive framework that is developed from the precepts of critical social justice will be required (Irving 2010).
Chaves et al. (2004), arguing along similar lines in an international context, go further, raising the issue that generally school to work transition initiatives are developed without any awareness of how the individuals that the programs target conceive and construct ideas of employment, work and vocation. This point is particularly relevant to the Indigenous policy space where policies and
programs are based on the non-Indigenous or Australian mainstream concept of work (see Gibson 2010; McRae Williams & Gerristen 2010).
Gibson’s (2010) research with Indigenous people throws some light on this in her explanation of the intersection between work and employment in western NSW: ‘for most Aboriginal people in
Wilcannia, you are who you are, not by virtue of what you have “become” in any economic,
professional or educational sense. Who you are is not a becoming, it is established at birth’ (Gibson 2010, p. 143). She observes that ‘life in Wilcannia is not a carefully planned process which
encompasses stages or periods of development as these pertain to employment’ (Gibson 2010, p. 155). Gibson goes on to highlight the attempts by government agencies to get Aboriginal people into employment and the balance being skewed towards public sector jobs. Good jobs are seen as the domain of white people and the jobs that are available to Aboriginal people are felt to be spurious and are generally knocked back. Those that move away to ‘better’ themselves can be judged harshly by others in the Indigenous community as forfeiting culturally perceived values for regular work attendance and what it affords (Gibson 2010).
28 Issues of cultural identity and autonomy of the individual are also seen as aspects of Indigenous concepts and contexts of employment that are not found or acknowledged within a mainstream understanding of work. Helme (2010) also talks about the importance of cultural identity and community services when people make decisions about future careers based on the training choices made by the participants in her research. McRae-Williams and Gerritsen (2010), focusing on a remote community, suggest that ‘culture, as daily-ways-of-being in the world, is an important, almost sufficient, barrier to Indigenous integration to some non-Indigenous mores and social requirements, such as working for a living’ (p. 2). There is also the issue of autonomy of the
individual, for example taking into account what tasks and roles the individual wants or would like to do whilst at work and the reluctance to take too much direction (McRae-Williams & Gerritsen 2010). In the context of a community where people are all related workers, individuals see themselves as ‘working for’ somebody and not simply ‘working’, which demands that the responsibilities that come with authority be acknowledged (Austin-Broos 2006). Finally, it could be argued that specific
discourse over the need to motivate young Aboriginal people into work overlooks the long history and culture of work characteristic of the past (Keen 2010).
Irving (2010) suggests that career education programs should be developed to make sure they are located within a socially just framework. In that case the utilisation of youth work seems
appropriate and a good match with its roots based within a social justice model. The flexibility of youth work programs means a space is provided to address the social and political context in which the ‘Aboriginal education problem’ is occurring that might not be available within a more structured and administered space such as a school. It also seems to provide an opportunity to incorporate the community development model, providing additional capacity for communities to work with schools through models of enhanced coordination. However like schooling, youth work is also influenced by many of the same discourses and philosophies that underpin the development and delivery of the policies that make up the ‘Aboriginal education’ space.
I draw on relevant literature that focuses on Indigenous youth, Indigenous youth policy, youth work and career development to provide context to the youth program and the organisations, staff and young people involved with the program. I use this literature to provide an introduction to the assumptions that underpin policy approaches and current models of youth work and provide a basis from which to discuss the robustness and relevance of such policies and approaches when viewed in the historical, social and political contexts in which they find themselves. I now move my attention to describing the youth program on which this thesis is based.
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