Goes Hereuating Super’s Life Span Theory of Careers Essay Example

view that job preferences and competencies, an individual’s life situations, and their self-concepts all change during the course of his life span.

Super also developed the concept of vocational maturity, which may vary irrespective of the chronological age of an individual. Donald Super's life span, life space approach to career development can also be said to be based to some extent on the Self Theory of Carl Rogers. According to Super’s theory, while making vocational choices individuals act according to their perception of themselves. Thus, career choices are driven by self-concepts. A number of other scholars also influenced Super.

Some of these were Hull, Thorndike, and Bandura, who helped in shaping the part of the theory, which focuses on the distinct life roles of the individual, and the fact that personality and interests change across the life span, rather than just the first few decades of life (Super, Savickas, and Super, 1996). Assumptions of Super’s Theory of Life Span, Life Space – Super’s career development theory can be said to be based on some assumptions, which are:

1. A person’s life can be divided into stages that are related to age.
2. Individuals go through these stages in different ways and at different times.
3. Each stage has important developmental tasks associated with it.
4. If a person does not learn tasks during the preferred stage, he may have to learn them at a later stage.
5. During childhood, a person’s interests, motivation, and other career behaviors are formed (Gottfredson, 1981; Tracey, 2002).
6. An individual’s personality changes as he matures.
7. The developmental process is irreversible.
8. Super’s theory discusses problems as if they were situated in an equal and ideal society, where employees
   

and employers, men and women, whites and blacks, have the same rights and powers.

I agree with the above assumptions. The above given assumptions form the assumptions of almost all career development theories.

Though, many of these assumptions can’t be said to be based on reality. For instance, the blacks, women, and poor people do not have the same opportunities for career as the white people. There are many factors such as racial discrimination, economic and labor forces, and varying opportunities due to which the career theories cannot be applied to people of color.Understanding Super’s Life Span, Life Space Theory - Super defined five stages of career development, which are as follows:

1. Growth (Birth to 14 years of age) – During this period the child develops physically and psychologically. His self-concept is formed, which will be the driving force in his future vocational choices.
2. Exploration (14 to 25 years of age) – During this time, a person learns about the various work opportunities and their requirements. He chooses a specific work area which he prefers, he gets training for this work, and begins to practice it.
3. Establishment (26 to 45 years of age) – An individual gets firmly settled into his chosen work area, he becomes very productive and may be promoted to higher levels of responsibility.
4.  Maintenance (46 to 64 years of age) – The individual maintains the current position that he has at work; he updates his skills to measure up to the competition from younger people. At the end of this period, he begins to plan for his retirement.
5.  Disengagement (65 and above) – The person slows down and gradually begins distancing himself from
   

his work.

He engages in a different lifestyle, which includes more of leisure activities, time with his family, and community activities. According to Super’s Life Span, Life Space Theory, there are eight life roles that are played in four theaters as an individual goes through the five developmental stages. These life roles are son/daughter, student, worker, spouse, homemaker, parent, leisurite, and citizen. The four theaters in which these life roles are carried out are home, school, community, and workplace. The life roles defined by Super overlap and affect each other. Most people play many of these life roles simultaneously in several theaters.

For example, for a university student, career may be a combination of the student, son/daughter, and worker roles. For many other adults, career may be a combination of student, parent, son/daughter, spouse, worker, and citizen roles.The most central statement of Super’s theory is related to the importance of an individual’s self-concept in the career choice process and career development. According to this theory of Super’s each of us has a self-concept or a picture of who we are and what we are like. According to Super, the formation of self-concept starts as soon as a baby realizes that he is separate from his parents and continues to develop throughout his life.

This self-concept plays an important role in the vocational choices of an individual. It is the central theme of Super’s theory that people seek to live out their vocational self-concept through their career choices. If a person has an ill-defined or poor self-concept, he or she is likely to make poor or less than satisfying vocational choices. Work may be boring or meaningless if people

are unable to view it as expressing their abilities, values, and interests.

According to Super, people seek career satisfaction through work roles in which they can express themselves and implement and develop their self-concept. Thus, self-concept is a most important factor in career choice and job satisfaction. Super’s theory definitely makes a lot of sense. The concept of a one time vocational choice during a person’s life is no longer valid as the world has changes. Super’s concept of career development was that career choices change throughout the life span of an individual. Super’s definition of life roles holds true even in today’s world.

Empirical research has proved Super’s theory. Before Super’s theory was introduced in the United States, the general concept was that only young people needed to make vocational choices. But, after this theory, attention was paid to vocational choices of adults also. Super’s work has proved very useful in career counseling and has been used extensively in career counseling.

An example where Super’s work has been used is Bowlsby's computerized program (American College Testing Program, 1984). Super’s work on career maturity has been included into career counseling tools such as the Career Development Inventory (Thompson & Lindeman, 1984) and Crites Career Maturity Inventory (Hershenson & Szymanski, 1992). One area where Super's theory is applicable greatly is in the field of rehabilitation counseling. It provides a framework for charting the career development needs of people who have congenital disabilities and whose career development may be delayed due to this.

The work also applies in a great measure to people with acquired disabilities whose career development may have slowed down due to the disabilities. Criticisms of the Theory

– Many critics of the major career development theories (Fitzgerald and Betz 1994; Leong 1995; Naidoo 1998; "Special Issue" 1994) say that these theories are based on the values of white, middle-class people. The critic's further state that these theories make certain assumptions (such as relative affluence, access to education and employment, free and open labor market, work as a central value); fail to take into account important cultural variables; and include certain concepts, which are not applicable to particular groups.·      Brown (1990) states that there were developmental and differential influences on Super’s thinking and that because of these varied influences Super failed to integrate strands into a cohesive statement (Brown, 1990, p.355). Super himself accepted that a weakness of his theory was that it was fragmented in nature.

However, he expected that the theory would be developed in the future. This fragmented nature of the theory was identified as the most serious criticism of the theory (Super et al., 1996) in an article, which was published after Super’s death in 1994: ‘Its propositions are really a series of summarizing statements that, although closely related to data, lack a fixed logical form that could make new contributions of their own’ (Super et al., 1996, p.143).·      Osipow and Fitzgerald (1996) were of the view that the original version of the theory was too general in nature to be of significant practical use, due to its conceptual value being limited by the sweeping style of its statements.

Although, this weakness of the theory has been removed by subsequent revisions of the theory. They put forward that one particular weakness is the failure to integrate economic and social factors that

influence an individual’s career decisions.·      This same opinion is shared by Scharf (1997) and Brown (1990), who are of the view that Super’s theory does not apply in full to the women and ethnic groups (Brown, 1990, p.355; Scharf, 1997, p.153).

·      Brown (1990) is also critical of the theory for its failure to address the career development needs of persons from lower socio-economic groups (Brown, 1990, p.355).·      Another important concern of Osipow and Fitzgerald (1996) is that ‘in recent years relatively few new empirical tests of the theory have been conducted’ (p.144).·      According to Super’s theory, occupational aspirations and choice is a process in which individuals seek careers according to their self-concepts. This theory has faced criticism for failing to take into account the environments in which children, adolescents, and young adults make career choices that decide their career path in adulthood (Arbona, 1996; Gottfredson, 1981; Vondracek, Lewes ; Schulenberg, 1986).

This was an investigation to explore childhood career development by studying 4th- and 5th-grade students' thoughts on career and career planning. Written assignments were given, the responses to which provided qualitative data for analysis. Written narrative data were analyzed. The results showed that in the children's reflections on career choices and preferences, eight of the nine (all but curiosity) dimensions of childhood career development were as outlined by Super.;How wide a Range of Phenomena this Theory Describes - Super’s Life Span, Life Space theory was based on studies on white males from middle- and upper-middle-class backgrounds. It did not take into account women, people of color, the poor, homosexuals, lesbians, and bisexual people.

According to some studies, the life stages defined by Super are not particularly

applicable to women, more so since their roles have changed in the last few decades (Sharf 1997).; Comparison to Krumboltz’ Theory – Krumboltz's theory addresses the issue of “how career interests develop, how the environment influences one's career decision-making, and the manner in which career decision-making skills are developed.” The major assumptions on which Krumboltz’s theory is based are that interests, task approach skills, and views of self and the world of work are all learned and all of them influence the choices a person makes throughout his career. Krumboltz (1996) was of the view that his theory applied equally well to all groups of people; however, each group (as well as individuals within groups) could have learning experiences that were very different from those of another group.