Chapter 10
SOCIAL CONTEXTS FOR CAREER
GUIDANCE THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.
DEVELOPMENTAL-CONTEXTUAL
PERSPECTIVES ON CAREER ACROSS
THE LIFESPAN
Fred W. Vondr acek 1 and Er ik J . Por feli2
Since its introduction, the meta-theoretical framework of developmental contextu-
alism (Vondracek, Lerner, & Schulenberg, 1986) has served as a stimulus to
researchers and practitioners in career development who care about understanding
the developing person in a multitude of ever-changing contexts. At this point it has
become widely accepted in the study of career development that behaviour is the
result of interactions between person and contexts (Chartrand, Strong, & Weitzman,
1995; Shanahan & Porfeli, 2002). Shanahan and Porfeli (2002, p. 404) pointed out,
however, that “the premise that vocational development reflects both person and
context is so established that much of the time it is in fact not empirically studied.”
The integration of both human development and context in career interventions has
proved to be no less difficult than it is in the research enterprise. Nevertheless,
progress has been made in theory development, empirical investigations, and the
applications of these advances in career development intervention strategies.
Background
The developmental-contextual approach to lifespan career development (Vondracek
et al., 1986) shares many essential features with Donald Super’s lifespan life space
approach to career development (Super, 1980, 1990; Super, Savickas, & Super,
1996). Super was influenced by both the life-course perspective of Charlotte Bühler
(1959) and the construct of developmental tasks proposed by Havighurst (1951),
which was reflected in his commitment to age-related developmental stages and life
stage-related developmental tasks. Super found it difficult, however, to reflect the
strength of his commitment to a lifespan approach while giving equal attention to
1
The Pennsylvania State University, USA
2
Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine and Pharmacy
J.A. Athanasou, R. Van Esbroeck (eds.) International Handbook of Career Guidance, 209
© Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008
210 F.W. Vondracek, E.J. Porfeli
his conviction that an individual’s career development could be understood only
when placed within the life space context. Consequently, he introduced his
“Archway to Career Development” to reflect his appreciation of both development
and context (Super, 1990, 1994). Super clearly favoured a developmental-contextual
approach to career development long before that terminology entered the field. For
example, in describing his “developmental self-concept approach,” he insisted that
“person-situation interaction” is central to his overall approach (Super, 1981, p. 36).
He believed that segmental theories (like his) were necessary because they served
to focus upon central aspects of the life course and life space within work, family,
and community contexts. He also believed that his theory risked being an over-sim-
plification of the true, albeit complex and confusing, nature of the whole person
within the vast array of relevant contexts. Referring to the developmental-contex-
tual model of lifespan career development proposed by Vondracek et al. (1986), he
suggested that “each researcher and practitioner now has a choice between
Vondracek’s complexity, Holland’s simplicity, and this [Super’s] multiplicity of
simplicities (Super, 1994, p. 72).”
Super’s preference for the segmental theories approach was predicated on the
theories he knew and utilised in his own work. Specifically, he relied on Baldwin’s
(1906) theory of maturity, Sarbin’s (1952) work on self concepts, Tyler’s (1955)
contributions on interests (as well as the aforementioned work of Bühler and
Havighurst). Sociological studies such as Hollingshead’s (1949) and Miller and
Form’s (1951) were important in informing him and his Career Pattern Study
(Super & Bachrach, 1957) regarding the social context of career development. He
employed Berlyne’s (1954) work on curiosity to extend his model of career devel-
opment to the childhood years and thereby establish a truly lifespan view of career
development. All of these foundational contributions are now more than half-a-
century old, conceived and articulated in a world that was stable compared with
today’s rapid pace of change, community-centred rather than global, disciplinary
rather than interdisciplinary, and mechanistic rather than electronic. Social science
was operating in a hand-calculated and mainly hand-built world in contrast to
today’s virtual computer-based social and scientific methodologies. Against this
background, it is clear that Super’s theory accurately reflected the historical time
during which it was formulated. In the present chapter, an effort is made to describe
the main features of developmental contextualism, a theoretical framework that is
continuing to evolve and that is capable of representing the rapidly changing and
complex world of today. Moreover, some of the most promising advances in devel-
opmental-contextual thinking as well as their relevance for the design of research
and career development interventions will be reviewed.
Developmental Contextualism
Today more than ever, there is good reason to replace (or at least further connect)
the segmental theories approach with approaches that aim to represent both the
individual and the multiple contexts within which individuals operate in all of their
