Issues in Career Development (Hc)

The primary purpose of Issues in Career Development is to provide a broad look at the field of career developmentincluding career counseling, career guidance, career education, and general career development programming, and to examinesome of the field's major themes, approaches, and assumptions. We will examine both knowledge from the past as well aswhat the future might bring. We will bring together a variety of experts/authors from the area of interest and try to providereaders with a framework for action based on the best available research information.The concept of career development is in a period of dramatic transition resulting from equally dramatic changes in the labor marketand the socio-cultural environment. Work has a different meaning today than it had one hundred, fifty, or even ten years ago. Career isnow much more tightly interwoven with life, and lifestyle. In that context, career development can only be understood when viewed as a partof the broader concept of human development. Past research clearly indicates that interventions can and do have a significant impact on avariety of career development areas (e.g. job satisfaction, worker productivity), however, there are significant questions that are yet to beanswered, and given the changing career/work landscape, significant questions that are not yet known. Particular areas of interest for thefuture relate to the changing nature of the labor market, gender and minority group issues, socio-economic trends, etc. Historically, much ofthe research on career development has assumed that psychological factors play the major role in a person's career choices. However, it isbecoming increasingly clear that the environment plays a much bigger role than previously assumed. This monograph series will examinethese and other relevant issues in the years to come.