Career and Work Adaptability

The inclusion of educational, cultural, economic, social and historical contexts in the development of career interventions can enhance adaptation to career-life transitions. In a South African context, interventions that promote career adaptability skills could enhance career adaptability competencies and bolster employability. This chapter reports on the designing and adapting a contextually grounded life-designing career intervention titled the Shaping Career Voices Intervention in the Kayamandi Township. A collaborative engagement process was undergone using focus group interviews and Delphi panel focus groups with community role players, including fieldworkers, teachers, principals, and Non-governmental Organisation members. A thematic analysis was conducted on the interview data using Career Construction Theory as a theoretical framework. Themes that emerged were used to create the content for the Shaping Career Voices Intervention Workbook. The development process contributed to career counselling practice and theory by demonstrating the incorporation of collaborative mechanisms in the practice of multicultural counselling with South African disadvantaged population groups to design contextually relevant career interventions in a non-western developing world context.

A karrier tanácsadásban igen sokáig figyelmen kívül hagyták azt a tényt, hogy a dolgozónak megfelelő alkalmazkodási képességekkel kell rendelkeznie, hogy munkájában sikeresen és elégedetten dolgozhasson. Lofquist és Dawis (1984) Munkához Való Alkalmazkodási Elméletét a Minnesota Egyetemen dolgozták ki 35 évnyi kutatás után, s ennek célja annak megjóslása, hogy a személy mennyire tudna alkalmazkodni egy adott álláshoz.
Dawis és Lofquist három fő pontban határozta meg a karrier tanácsadási elméletet, melyek során a kliens tulajdonságainak, személyiségvonásainak és a foglalkozásokhoz szükséges tulajdonságok és követelmények összeegyeztetésével igyekszik álláslehetőségeket felkínálni. A munkák adottságokat illető követelményeinek és megerősítési mintázatainak ismeretében a kliens adottságai és értékei alapján megválasztható a megfelelő karrier.
Az ehhez kifejlesztett Minnesota Importance Questionnaire(MIQ) nagyban hozzájárult a mindenkori karrier tanácsadás sikerességéhez. A teória – újfajta látásmódja miatt – sokkal nagyobb körben alkalmazható, mint a korábbiak.

A critical standpoint is taken in the present research study to explore the extent to which key career constructs, such as career adaptability and vocational identity, may manifest differently in a non-Western and developing world context, such as that of the Kayamandi township in South Africa. This research process consisted of six phases as part of a multi-phase mixed-methods research design. In Phase 1, relevant role players were included in the development of a culturally sensitive life-designing career intervention. In Phase 2, a psychometric analysis was undertaken that determined that the Career Adapt-abilities Scale (CAAS) and Vocational Identity Status Assessment (VISA) measures had moderate reliability and validity in the Kayamandi township context. This data was contextualised with qualitative Delphi interviews. Thereafter, Phase 3 consisted of the pilot intervention, which established the content, structure and applicability of the career intervention, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Phase 4 included the final administration of the Shaping Career Voices intervention. In Phase 4, the career measures were administered to 582 Grade 10, 11, and 12 isiXhosa-speaking high school students between the ages of 14 and 22 years old (M=17, SD=1.3) from a peri-urban low-income setting. Participants included 314 Grade 10 (55%), 237 Grade 11 (41%) and 31 Grade 12 (5%) students, of whom 169 (31%) were males and 369 (69%) were females. A repeated-measures research design was utilised and scores were tracked at four time points: T1 and T2 before administering a culturally-constructed career life-designing intervention, as well as at two time points after the intervention (T3 and T4). Scores were observed in all of the subscales of the VISA and CAAS to have increased significantly as a result of the intervention. The most significant results were seen between T1 and T4, where scores remained high at the follow-up (T4). The results indicated gender differences, as female participants were seen to score significantly higher on the CAAS subscales of concern and co-operation, in contrast to male participants, who scored higher on the VISA subscales of career flexibility (CF) and self-doubt (SD). Grade differences were also observed, which indicated that learners who were facing high school graduation (Grade 12) had the highest increases in scores across the two instruments. Most interesting was the finding that vocational identity statuses began shifting at T1 and then remained consistent from T3 onwards. In addition, the CAAS subscales increased monotonically across vocational identity statuses from least to more adaptive as a result of the intervention. Lastly, two new vocational identity statuses were uncovered in this sample, namely undifferentiated moratorium and foreclosed moratorium, due to the increase in vocational identity subscale scores that resulted from the intervention process. The implications for research and career counselling practice are discussed. Furthermore, quantitative data were supplemented with evaluative and reflective intervention feedback (Phase 5) as well as a focus group interview (Phase 6). The focus group took place six months after the completion of the career intervention and allowed a deeper analysis of contextually bound and culturally sensitive factors. Unique patterns of stability and change in, as well as associations between, career adaptability and vocational identity subscales emerged in this South African case study. The findings suggest that the manifestation of career adaptabilities and vocational identity processes is the result of dynamic interactions between individuals, collectivistic values and their environments. The current research addresses the call for research to be conducted across diverse socio-economic statuses, geographical locations as well as racial and linguistic groups to facilitate etic-emic understandings of the career development of marginalised youth worldwide.