Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to submit your manuscript to SPPS

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
The Counseling Psychologist
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Poole, M. E.
Right arrow Articles by Omodei, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Conference

A Contextualist Model of Professional Attainment

Results of a Longitudinal Study of Career Paths of Men and Women

Millicent E. Poole

Monash University

Janice Langan-Fox

Monash University

Michelle Ciavarella

Monash University

Mary Omodei

University of Melbourne

This study investigates the importance, in adolescence, of motivational, contextual, and demographic variables in predicting professional attainment in the early stages of career development. Using a synthesis of two theories; the Levinson Life Cycle and the Astin Theory of Career Choice, longitudinal data derived from approximately 3,000 adolescent students over a 10-year period from final year secondary school through to the age of 27 was analyzed using LISREL structural equation modeling. Predictor variables were selected from the data in line with a new contextualist theoretical model of career choice that contained variable blocks or conceptual "career tracks," comprising socioeconomic background, sex role socialization, work motivation, external constraints operating on choice, and career planning. Results from the study showed that external contextual factors such as socialization influences from the family parental expectations and occupational expectations and individual factors such as ability and attainment were powerful determinants of professional attainment. Sex differences revealed that student perceived parental expectations for sons had a stronger effect on school attainment and expectations than did parental expectations for daughters. Further, the effects of constraints operating on college attainment and professional attainment were stronger for women than for men. Analyses indicated that the Astin model of career choice needs further refinement and the value of a contextualist framework is suggested.

The Counseling Psychologist, Vol. 19, No. 4, 603-624 (1991)
DOI: 10.1177/0011000091194008
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 The Counseling PsychologistHome page
S. C. Whiston and B. K. Keller
The Influences of the Family of Origin on Career Development: A Review and Analysis
The Counseling Psychologist, July 1, 2004; 32(4): 493 - 568.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 The Counseling PsychologistHome page
C. Z. Enns
Twenty Years of Feminist Counseling and Therapy: From Naming Biases to Implementing Multifaceted Practice
The Counseling Psychologist, January 1, 1993; 21(1): 3 - 87.
[Abstract]