Practice and research in career counseling and development--2006.(Annual Review)

The author presents professional literature published in 2006 related to career counseling and development. The literature is organized into 3 sections: (a) professional issues related to career development throughout the life span, culture, ethnicity, gender, and other specific topics; (b) research related to theoretical and conceptual advances; and (c) career interventions and practice, including issues related to career assessment and technology. Cohesive themes throughout this review are the concepts of social context embedded in career development, multicultural perspectives, and global and international perspectives of career development. Research is encouraged regarding career interventions that are based on career theories specific to certain cultures and in general for global needs.

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The annual review organizes the professional career literature published in 2006. This review of the literature was challenging, and I did not realize how overwhelming this task would be until I became immersed in the process. Despite my being overwhelmed, constant learning occurred and made my teaching and supervision work abundant. To make the literature review meaningful for career researchers and practitioners alike, I tried to be succinct in searching for and including articles to be reviewed. The search, therefore, was not exhaustive. Each article published in The Career Development Quarterly, Journal of Career Development, Journal of Career Assessment, Journal of Vocational Behavior, and Journal of Employment Counseling was read. Next, a keyword search was conducted on all journals published by the American Counseling Association and on certain journals published by the American Psychological Association. Career-related articles from the Journal of Counseling & Development, Professional School Counseling, Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, Journal of Counseling Psychology, The Counseling Psychologist, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, Journal of College Counseling, Journal of College Student Development, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, and Psychological Reports have also been included in this review. During the literature search process, I noticed that there was an increase in the number of studies concerning career counseling in organizational settings and in career coaching. Thus, some relevant career-related articles from Human Resource Management Review, the Journal of Organizational Behavior, Human Relations, and Organizational Dynamics have also been included. Finally, a search was conducted of PsycINFO using a set of selected career development terms that identified a few additional articles of interest from the Journal of Business and Psychology, the Journal of Social Service Research, Sociology, The Policy Studies Journal, the Journal of Labor Research, the Counseling Psychology Quarterly, the Australian Journal of Psychology, the Journal of Addictions and Offender Counseling, and the Journal of Aging Studies. No books, book chapters, monographs, or electronic media are included in this review. Ultimately, this annual review covers 134 articles that were published in 2006 in refereed professional journals.

The 2006 career counseling and development review is organized into three broad areas: (a) professional issues; (b) career theory and concepts; and (c) career interventions and practice, including career assessment and technology. This review differs from the previous reviews in that career assessment and technology were considered types of interventions because there was a limited number of new assessment instruments developed in the past year. The literature this year seemed to focus more on examination of career intervention programs than in previous years. In addition, in organizing this review, I chose to discuss each article in only one of the three areas, although it was clear that many articles could have been presented in more than one area.

Professional Issues

Life Span Development

Youth and adolescents. Jacobs, Chhin, and Bleeker examined the relationship between parents' expectations and their young adult children's gender-typed occupational choices. The results indicated that parents' gender-typed occupational expectations were significantly related to their children's own expectations and to the children's actual career choices. In addition, job satisfaction was significantly related to having a gender-typed career. These findings suggest that parents' early gender-typed expectations for their children's occupational achievements are highly related to the actual occupational decisions made by their adult children.