Introduction: Rethinking Career Development

This chapter introduces readers to The Oxford Handbook of Career Development and to the field of career development. The origins of the field are discussed in relation to vocational guidance, differential psychology, interactionist sociology, and life course development. The selection of the term career development for this volume is explained with regard to three interlocking themes: the broader contexts of career development, including government policy; the wide range of theory concerned with career-related experiences, phenomena, and behaviour; and the broad spectrum of career helping practices, including one-to-one work and group work. The inspiration and aims for the volume are set out, and the challenges associated with terminology in the field are acknowledged. The editors seek to provide a state-of-the-art reference point for the field of career development, and engender a transdisciplinary and international dialogue that explores key current ideas, debates, and controversies. The volume is divided into three sections. The first explores the economic, educational, and public policy contexts for practice. The second section focuses on concepts and explores the rich theoretical landscape of the field. The third section turns to practice, and the translation of ideas into action to support individuals and groups with their career development.

Introduction: Development, Young People, and the Social Production of Aspirations

In this editorial introduction to the Special Issue Youth, Aspirations and the Life Course: Development and the social production of aspirations in young people’s lives, we put the work presented in this collection in conversation with the wider literature on development, youth and aspirations. Aspiration we define as an orientation towards a desired future. We elaborate on our conceptualisation of aspirations as socially produced and reflect on the methodological challenges in researching young people’s aspirations in development. While mindful of the various critiques of aspiration research we argue that aspirations constitute fertile terrain for theorising the temporal dynamics of being young and growing up in contexts of development.

Capturing the financial hardship of cancer in military adolescent and young adult patients: A conceptual framework.

163 Background: Cancer can be a setback for young active-duty military patients, with potential implications for their financial well-being, early career paths, and young families. Despite the assumption of sufficient material support for military patients, cancer and its treatments still result in substantial out-of-pocket expenses and lost-opportunity costs that can lead to financial hardship. Although prior cancer survivorship studies have put forth a material, psychosocial, and behavioral conceptual framework for describing financial hardship following a cancer diagnosis, it is unknown whether this framework adequately depicts the experience of financial hardship among military adolescent and young adult (AYA) patients. The primary aim of the current study was to extend this conceptual model of financial hardship following a cancer diagnosis for application among military AYA patients. Methods: Using Gale and colleagues’ Framework Method for qualitative multi-disciplinary health research, the investigator team conducted focus groups and key informant interviews (n=24) with active-duty AYA cancer patients, cancer care providers, and commanding officers at both a military medical center and a military post in Hawaii. Subsequently, content analysis and thematic abstraction produced results that were sorted to characterize the material, psychosocial, and behavioral domains of financial hardship. Finally, investigators employed health behavioral change theories to construct a conceptual framework. Results: Data analysis revealed that young active-duty military patients’ experiences of financial hardship following a cancer diagnosis occur within material, psychosocial, and behavioral domains that are uniquely situated within the environments of AYA development and military culture. Hence, we elaborated upon an existing conceptual framework of the financial hardship of cancer, by extending it to capture two meso-level contexts that emerged from our findings: (1) life course development and (2) occupational culture. Conclusions: Differentiating individual experiences of financial hardship within the contexts of life course development and occupational culture, may enable the development of interventions that are informed by the aspect of financial hardship most impacted by cancer care for this special population. Future research should further explicate the meso-level contexts in our study, and investigate the associations among and between factors within these social and environmental contexts.

The sociology of ageing

This chapter begins with an overview of the contrasting phenomena that need to be reconciled within the sociology of ageing. It stresses respects in which ageing itself is a social phenomenon, arguing that they reveal deep social ambiguities and contestations in connection with the human life-course. It then examines both threats and resources associated with globalized aspects of contemporary ageing, before interrogating contributions by successive theoretical analyses of what ageing involves. The chapter explores the decisive impacts of welfare states on the circumstances of ageing and their connections with the social distribution of family and caring roles. It continues with a discussion of generational and gender relations before examining wider environments for life-course development and their connections with familial and other forms of mutual care. Lastly, it addresses issues relating to social exclusion and ageism, before exploring aspects of social meaning connected with later life and their potential for enhancement.

How to Understand Emerging Adulthood

Chapter 2 contextualizes emerging adulthood and changing life course development processes within larger economic, social, and cultural trends. Within this context, this chapter discusses the role of contemporary higher education in understanding and adapting to those changes. The chapter explains how changes that created the elongation of life course development, including longer periods of transition into adulthood, help to make sense of modern college students. Students learn how experiences with moving, changing identities, picking an academic path, as well as romantic partnering and breakups, all fit within the life stage tasks of establishing identity while forming intimate and durable relationships. Achieving a better grasp of how transitioning into adulthood looks for young people today helps students understand themselves, meet their needs, and explain themselves to others.

A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF NARRATIVES CONTRIBUTED BY OLDER AFRICAN AMERICANS

We analyzed 19 interviews of African Americans who came of age during desegregation. We approached the development of the coding system and analysis of coded transcripts using an iterative inductive/deductive approach guided theoretically by the social ecological framework and life course development theory. Major coding categories included time orientation, topics of discussion, emotions, habits and behaviors, family, community, race relations, and history. Analysis of the sorted and coded quotes led to the development of a conceptual framework for understanding how participants portrayed their life trajectories. Individuals’ lives occurred in the context of societal institutions, the larger society, and culture. Life trajectories involve a series of changes in life circumstances and social relationships during which individuals engage with life goals such as making a living, staying healthy, coping with stressors, and maintaining satisfactory interpersonal relationships. Important themes associated with healthy aging included resilience, faith, forgiveness, and family.