Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Multiple careers

Whereas a career comprises the work activities that can be identified with a particular job or profession, having multiple careers is the growing trend in the late 20th century and early 21st century. These multiple careers can either be concurrent (where a worker has two simultaneous careers) or sequential (where a worker adopts a new career after having worked for some time in another career). Both may occur for different reasonsClick Here to Advertise on My Blog
Sandra Kerka (2003) reports that "'studies in the United States at the end of the seventies already showed that between 10 and 30 percent of the economically active population had experienced at least one career change in a 5-year period' (Teixeria & Gomes, 2000, p. 78). Of 91 skilled young adults in Germany, only one-third had continuous careers in the first 8 years after graduation and over half were employed in other occupations at least once (Heinz 2002). The phenomenon of reverse transfer provides an indirect clue: Townsend (2003) found that 62% of bachelor's-degree holders who enroll in community colleges were seeking an associate degree or certificate in order to make a career change." [1]

Concurrent multiple careers

Workers with concurrent multiple careers adopt a "hyphenated" professional identity. A "teacher-painter" might refer to an individual who works for nine months out of the year as an Elementary School Teacher and three (summer) months out of the year as a painter. A "doctor-potter" might refer to an individual who works as an ENT-physician during the day, but works within a ceramics studio at night. Some consider the hyphen "-homemaker" or "-caregiver" as suggestive of another type of concurrent multiple career worker. That is, a "lawyer-homemaker" works as attorney and is also in charge of domestic duties at home. Increasingly, as adults must care for younger generation children and older generation parents, the "X-caregiver" worker has emerged — where a worker completes the tasks of career-X and simultaneously cares for the needs of children and elders. Some note that many members of the working class have long been concurrent workers out of economic necessity.

Workers can adopt concurrent multiple careers for a host of reasons including: economic (such as poverty or striving for additional wealth), educational (such as multiple degrees in multiple fields), or personal (such as interest or lack of fulfillment in one career). Economist, Richard Florida, among others suggests that some "hyphenates" pursue multiple concurrent careers in order to fulfill creative needs. A "doctor-potter," for example, might pursue ceramics for creative fulfillment as well as profit and professional development.

Author and New York Times columnist Marci Alboher popularized the term "slash careers" to describe multiple concurrent careers in her book One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work Life Success (2007). Instead of hyphenation, Alboher uses slash to demarcate concurrent multiple careers, as in "art dealer/yoga instructor" or "baker/comedian/web designer".


Sequential multiple careers
Workers with sequential multiple careers adopt a changing professional identity over time. Thus, a worker may devote 10-20 years of his/her life to one career and then switch to a related career or an entirely new one. As life-expectancy increases, as retirement benefits decrease, and as educational opportunities expand — workers may increasingly find themselves forced to fulfill the goals of one career and then adopt another. Some view this as an opportunity to expand meaning and purpose into later life, while others see this trend as an unfortunate economic and social reality.

A new term and developing concept around the idea of multiple careers is "Career Diversity".

Edgar Schein

Edgar H. Schein (born 1928), a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management has had a notable mark on the field of organizational development in many areas, including career development, group process consultation, and organizational culture. He is generally credited with inventing the term corporate culture.

Schein (2004) identifies three distinct levels in organizational cultures; artifacts and behaviours, espoused values, and assumptions.

Schein has written on the issues surrounding coercive persuasion, comparing and contrasting brainwashing as a use for "goals that we deplore and goals that we accept."

Education
Ph.D., social psychology, Harvard University, 1952
Master's Degree, Psychology, Stanford University, 1949
University of Chicago


Awards, honors
Awards
Lifetime Achievement Award in Workplace Learning and Performance of the American Society of Training and Development, February 3, 2000
Everett Cherington Hughes Award for Career Scholarship, Careers Division of the Academy of Management, August 8, 2000
Marion Gislason Award for Leadership in Executive Development, Boston University School of Management Executive Development Roundtable, December 11, 2002
Professional
Fellow, American Psychological Association
Fellow, Academy of Management
Board Member
Advisory Board, Institute for Nuclear Power Operations
Board Member, Massachusetts Audubon Society
Board Member, Boston Lyric Opera

Intelligence and aptitudes

Aptitude and intelligence quotient are related, and in some ways opposite, views of human mental ability. Whereas intelligence quotient sees intelligence as being a single measurable characteristic affecting all mental ability, aptitude breaks mental ability down into many different characteristics which are supposed to be more or less independent of each other.

On the contrary, casual analysis with any group of test scores will nearly always show them to be highly correlated. The U.S. Department of Labor's General Learning Ability, for instance, is determined by combining Verbal, Numerical and Spatial aptitude subtests. In a given person some may be relatively low and others relatively high. In the context of an aptitude test the "high" and "low" scores are usually not far apart, because all ability test scores tend to be correlated. Aptitude is better applied intra-individually to determine what tasks a given individual is relatively more skilled at performing. Inter-individual aptitude differences are typically not very significant due to IQ differences. Of course this assumes individuals have not already been pre-screened for IQ through some other process such as SAT scores, GRE scores, finishing medical school, etc.


Aptitude Only batteries
Aptitudes are generally tested in the form of an aptitude battery which tests a large number of aptitudes at one time with a series of small tests for each aptitude. Aptitude batteries may lean more toward innate aptitudes or more toward learned skills. Aptitude batteries that lean toward aptitudes are often useful in selecting a career. The leading researchers and purveyors of aptitude tests are:

The Vocational Research Institute which produces a test used in schools and agencies that combines interest and aptitude for career guidance is Careerscope.
The Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation (JORF) is the original aptitude assessment organization. It produces the Johnson O'Connor Aptitude Battery (JOAB).
The Highlands Company is a spin-off of the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation. It produces and the Highland Ability Battery.
The Ball Foundation produces the Ball Aptitude Battery.
Aptitude Inventory Measurement Service produces the AIMS Aptitude Battery.

Career Clusters

Career Clusters provide students with a context for studying traditional academics and learning the skills specific to a career, and provide U.S. schools with a structure for organizing or restructuring curriculum offerings and focusing class make-up by a common theme such as interest.


In the U.S. Department of Education model, 16 Career Clusters link to 70+ more specific Career Pathways – each have their own knowledge and skills requirements. Within the 70+ career pathways, 1800 Career Specialties are defined. The structure has evolved over time and may vary by state. The U.S. DOE Career Clusters framework is useful for connecting students with courses of study and careers via Career Assessments, and allows them to learn general, more transferable skills at the cluster level, with more specific skills and knowledge acquired at the career pathways and speciality levels. The nonprofit Vocational Research Institute adapted an interest and aptitude assessment, Careerscope, to help students choose curriculum and careers for which they have both interest and aptitude - at the cluster, pathway and career specialty levels. A concept related to Career Clusters, Small Learning Community is primarily concerned with restructuring secondary schools, in many cases using a career clusters framework.
The Career Clusters initiative began in 1996 in the U.S. as the Building Linkages Initiative and was a collaborative effort between the U.S. Department of Education, the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE), the National School-to-Work Office (NSTWO) and the National Skill Standards Board (NSSB). The purpose of the Initiative was to establish linkages among State educational agencies, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions, employers, industry groups, other stakeholders and Federal agencies. The goal was to create curricular frameworks in broad career clusters, designed to prepare students to transition successfully from high school to postsecondary education and employment in a career area.

The creation of curricular models within the context of broad career clusters ensures the alignment of academic and technical instructional strategies with the requirements of postsecondary education and the expectations of employers in increasingly academic and technologically demanding careers. The vocational education field has historically responded to the needs of the national economy by preparing individuals to enter jobs in demand

School counselor

Elementary school counseling
Elementary professional school counselors following best practices provide developmental school counseling curriculum lessons (Stone & Dahir, 2006) on academic, career, college readiness, and personal and social competencies, advising and academic/career/college readiness planning to all students, and individual and group counseling for some students and their families to meet the developmental needs of young children K-6 (ASCA, 2005). Increased emphasis is starting to be placed on college readiness counseling at the elementary school level as more school counseling programs move to evidence-based work with data and specific results (Dimmitt, Carey, & Hatch, 2007). Research has shown that school counseling programs help to close achievement and opportunity gaps in terms of which students have access to school counseling programs and early college readiness activities and which students do not (College Board, 2008). To facilitate the school counseling process, school counselors use a variety of theories and techniques including developmental, cognitive-behavioral, person-centered (Rogerian) listening and influencing skills, systemic, family, multicultural (Holcomb-McCoy & Chen-Hayes, 2007; Portman, 2009), narrative, and play therapy.[citation needed] Sink & Stroh (2003) released a research study showing the effectiveness of elementary school counseling programs in Washington state.








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Middle school counseling
In middle school counseling, professional school counselors following best practices provide developmental school counseling curriculum lessons (Stone & Dahir, 2006) on academic, career, college readiness, and personal and social competencies, advising and academic/career/college readiness planning to all students and individual and group counseling for some students and their families to meet the developmental needs of late childhood and early adolescence according to sources such as the ASCA National Model (ASCA, 2005). Increasing emphasis has been placed on college readiness counseling at the middle school level as more school counseling programs move to evidenced-base work with data and specific results (Dimmitt, Carey, & Hatch, 2007) that show how school counseling programs help to close achievement and opportunity gaps in terms of which students have access to school counseling programs and early college readiness activities and which students do not (College Board, 2008).

Middle School College Readiness curricula have been developed by The College Board that can be used to assist students and their families in this process. To facilitate the school counseling process, school counselors use a variety of theories and techniques including developmental, cognitive-behavioral, person-centered (Rogerian) listening and influencing skills, systemic, family, multicultural (Holcomb-McCoy & Chen-Hayes, 2007; Portman, 2009), narrative, and play therapy. Transitional issues to ensure successful transitions to high school are a key area including career exploration and assessment with seventh and eighth grade students.[citation needed] Sink, Akos, Turnbull, & Mvududu released a study in 2008 confirming the effectiveness of middle school comprehensive school counseling programs in Washington state (Sink, Akos, Turnbull, & Mvududu, 2008).


High school counseling
In high school, professional school counselors following best practices provide developmental school counseling curriculum lessons (Stone & Dahir, 2006) on academic, career, college readiness, and personal and social competencies, advising and academic/career/college readiness planning to all students and individual and group counseling for some students to meet the developmental needs of adolescents according to sources such as the ASCA National Model (ASCA, 2005). Increasing emphasis is being placed on college readiness counseling at the early high school level as more school counseling programs move to evidence-based work with data and specific results (Dimmitt, Carey, & Hatch, 2007) that show how school counseling programs help to close achievement and opportunity gaps ensuring all students have access to school counseling programs and early college readiness activities (Carey et al, 2008). High School College Readiness curricula have been developed by The College Board to assist this process.

To facilitate school counseling, school counselors use varied theories and techniques including developmental, cognitive-behavioral, person-centered (Rogerian) listening and influencing skills, systemic, family, multicultural (Holcomb-McCoy & Chen-Hayes, 2007; Portman, 2009), narrative, and play therapy. Transitional issues to ensure successful transitions to college, other post-secondary educational options, and careers are a key area.[citation needed] The high school counselor helps students and their families prepare for rigorous post-secondary education and/or training options (e.g. college, trade school) by engaging students and their families in finding accurate and meaningful information on entrance requirements, financial aid, recommendation letters, test-preparation and so forth. Professional School Counselors at the high school level spend much of their time helping students and their families monitor their progress toward graduation and being adequately prepared for post-secondary options including college.[citation needed] Some students now turn to private college admissions counselors specialized in college admissions but the ethics of so doing is open to great debate in terms of who has access to this funding and there is little research-based evidence of effectiveness on the part of these outside parties.

The fees for these college admissions counselors can be as high as $30,000.

A framework for Professional School Counselor responsibilities and roles is outlined in the ASCA (American School Counselor Association) National Model (2005). Lapan, Gysbers, & Sun's (1997) study showed correlational evidence of the effectiveness of fully implemented school counseling programs on high school students' academic success. Carey et al's 2008 study showed specific best practices from school counselors raising college-going rates within a strong college-going environment in multiple USA-based high schools with large numbers of students of nondominant cultural identities.

Peer pressure

Peer pressure refers to the influence exerted by a peer group in encouraging a person to change his or her attitudes, values, or behavior in order to conform to the group. Social groups affected include membership groups, when the individual is "formally" a member (for example, political party, trade union), or a social clique. A person affected by peer pressure may or may not want to belong to these groups. They may also recognize dissociative groups with which they would not wish to associate, and thus they behave adversely concerning that group's behaviors.[citation needed] Peer pressure can cause people to do things they would not normally do, e.g. take drugs, smoke, etc.

Youth peer pressure is one of the most frequently referred-to forms of negative peer pressure. It is particularly common because most youths are forced to spend large amounts of time in fixed groups (schools and subgroups within them) regardless of their opinion of those groups. In addition to this, they may lack the maturity to handle it. Also, young people are more willing to behave negatively towards those who are not members of their own peer groups. However, youth peer pressure can also have positive effects. For example, if one is involved with a group of people that are ambitious and working to succeed, one might feel pressured to follow suit to avoid feeling excluded from the group. Therefore, the youth would be pressured into improving themselves, bettering them in the long run. This is most commonly seen in youths that are active in sports or other extracurricular activities.

Most people expect that socially accepted children fare the best in high school. It is expected that people who are considered popular will have the most resources, the most opportunities and the most positive experiences. Most times this is true, but research shows that being in the popular crowd may also be a risk factor for mild to moderate deviant behavior. Popular adolescents are the most socialized into their peer groups and thus are vulnerable to peer pressures regarding substance use and some deviant behaviors. Adolescence is a time of experimentation with new identities and experiences. The culture of high school often has its own social norms that are different from the outside culture. Some of these norms may not be especially positive or beneficial. Socially accepted kids are often accepted for the sheer fact that they conform well to the norms of teen culture, good and bad aspects included. Popular adolescents are more strongly associated with their peer groups in which they may together experiment with things like alcohol and drugs. Although there are a few risk factors correlated with popularity, deviant behavior is often only mild to moderate. Regardless, social acceptance provides more overall protective factors than risk factors