SUPER’S LIFE SPAN, LIFE SPACE THEORY Since the 1940s, Super has been promoting the i dea that career development development is a process that unfolds unfolds gradually over over the life span. span. Super has worked worked on his developmental developmental theory which occurs more or less l ess concurrently with the theory by Ginzberg, Ginsburg, Axelrad and Herma. Herma. This theory continues to develop until the 1990s 1990s under several names such as “career development theory” to “developmental developmental self-concept self-concept theory” to “life span, life space theory”. theory” . Life spaces need individuals to play related life roles. Super (1990) noted that people have different different life spaces spaces due to the following factors: factors: (a) Personal factors (needs, values, interest and aptitudes); and (b) Situational factors (family, neighbourhood, country of residence, economic policies, the existence existence of gender gender and racial racial bias). Super recommends recommends a total of 14 propositions underlying his career development development theory. His earlier contributions was a set of 10 propositions (Super, 1953), later expanded to 12 (Super & Bachrach, 1957). The latest 14 propositions are as follows: (a) People differ in their abilities and personalities, needs, values, interests, traits and self-concepts. self-concepts. (b) People are qualified, by virtue of these characteristics, characteristics, each for a number of occupations. (c) Each occupation requires a characteristic pattern of abilities and personality traits, which is large enough to allow both some variety of occupations for each individual and some variety of individuals in an occupation. (d) Vocational preferences and competencies, the situations in which people live and work, and, their self-concepts self-concepts change with time and experience, experience, although self-concepts as products of social learning are increasingly stable from late adolescence until late maturity, providing some continuity in choice and adjustment.
(e) The process of change summed up in a series of life stages (a maxicycle) is characterised characterised as a sequence of growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance maintenance and decline. These stages can then be sub-divided into (i) fantasy, tentative and realistic phases of the exploratory stage and (ii) t he trial and stable phases of the establishment establishment stage. A small (mini) cycle takes place in transition transition from one stage stage to the next. (f) Nature of career pattern ă that is, i s, the occu pational level level attained and the sequence, frequency frequency and duration of trial and stable jobs is determined by an individual’s individual’s socio-economic level, mental ability, education, skills, personality characteristics characteristics (needs, (needs, values, values, interests, traits traits and self-concept), self-concept), career maturity and by the opportunities to which he or she is exposed. (g) Success in coping with demands of the environment and of the organisation in that context at any given life-career stage depends on the readiness of the individual to cope with these demands (that is, on his/her career maturity). (h) Career maturity is a hypothetical construct, its operational definition is perhaps as difficult difficult to formulate as that of intelligence. intelligence. (i) Development through the life stages can be guided, partly by facilitating the maturing of abilities, interests and coping resources and partly by aiding in reality testing and in the development of self-concepts. (j) The process of career development is essentially that of developing and
implementing occupational self-concepts. It is a synthesising and compromising process in which the self-concept is a product of t he interaction of inherited aptitudes, physical make-up, opportunity to observe and play various roles and evaluation to the extent of which the results of role-playing meet with the approval of supervisors and fellows (interactive learning). (k) The process of synthesis or compromise between an individual and the social factors between self-concepts and reality, is of role playing and of learning from feedback, whether the role is played in fantasy, in the counselling interview, or in such real-life activities as classes, clubs, part time work and entry jobs. (l) Work satisfaction and life satisfaction depends on the extent t o which one finds adequate outlets for abilities, needs, values, interest, personality traits and self-concepts. (m) The degree of satisfaction people attain from work is proportional to the degree to which they have been able to implement self-concepts. (n) Work and occupation provides a focus for personality organisation for most men and women, although for some people this focus is peripheral, incidental or even non-existent. The other focus areas, such as leisure activities and homemaking, may be central. According to Hartung (2013), the life span, life space theory views career choice and development in three ways: (a) A movement overtime through discreet developmental stages by accompanying the developmental tasks that constitute to the life span theory; (b) As arrangement of worker and other roles that constitutes the psychological life space where people design their life; and (c) As implementation of self-concept in work roles. The next subtopic will discuss the three important components of the theory, namely life space in terms of career development, stages and tasks; life span in terms of life roles and self-concept in terms of adjusting oneself to a situation.
Life Span/Career Development Stages The understanding of stages and developmental tasks are essential to Super’s life span, life space theory. For this purpose, Super (1990) presented the life career rainbow to depict the theory’s dimensions of chronological time and contextual space of development stages and life roles. Figure 3.2 illustrates the modified version of the original life career rainbow to show the life stages and corresponding age range.
Career maturity is the first dimension depicted by the life career rainbow (Super, 1990). It is the life span or the maxi cycle. The career stages are shown in sequence on the outer band of the rainbow (see Figure 3.2), namely the following: (a) Growth (childhood); (b) Exploration (adolescence); (c) Establishment (young adulthood); (d) Maintenance (middle adulthood); and (e) Decline or disengagement (old age).
The following are the descriptions of the five career stages: (a) Growth (Birth to 14 Years Old) According to Hartung (2013), it is expected that opportunities and experience gained at home, through play and school will develop a child’s curiosities, fantasies, interests and capacities to construct a future possible self to be realised in work and social roles. This stage is characterised by the development of capacity, attitudes, interests and needs associated with self concept (Zunker, 2006) (b) Exploration Stage (15 to 24 Years Old) The exploration stage begins with an individual’s awareness that an occupation is an important aspect of life. This stage focuses on the goal of crystallising, specifying and implementing the vocational self-concept in the life role (Hartung, 2013): (i) Crystallisation is a process of formulating a general vocational goal through awareness of resources, contingencies, interest, values and planning for the preferred occupation (Zunker, 2006). (ii) The next phase of specification involves forming a clear and stable vocational identity through exploration of preferred occupation. It involves narrowing down vocational choices and moving from tentative choices to more specific choices. (iii) The implementation is the period of completing training for vocational preference and entering employment. (c) Establishment Stage (25 to 44 Years Old)
The establishment stage is a period of conforming to a preferred career by actual work experience and use of talents to demonstrate career choice as an appropriate one. This stage is characterised by trial and stabilisation through work experience (Zunker, 2006). This stage involves the tasks of stabilising, consolidating and advancing the self-concept and establishing a career pattern to develop security in the world of work: (i) Stabilisation is concerned with settling down in a job and being able to meet the job requirements. (ii) Once an individual becomes comfortable in their position, they will move to the consolidation stage where they become more competent, reliable and professional in their job. (iii) Advancement in the job occurs at any point after stabilisation and consolidation have been achieved. It refers to moving into a higher position, involving more responsibility and a higher pay. According to Hartung (2013), stable self-concepts and career patterns result from successful establishment wherein the main goal concerns implementing the self-concept in the work role to yield both a means to earn a living and have a meaningful way of living a life. (d) Maintenance Stage (45 to 64 Years Old) During the maintenance stage, the individual attempts to continue with, or improve the occupational situation (Brown, 2012). The person continues to achieve self-satisfaction and maintain his or her vocational self-concept. Maintaining a vocational self-concept involves several strategies such as the following (Hartung, 2013): (i) Holding on to a secured position through continued job proficiency; (ii) Updating skills and knowledge through education to enhance performance; or (iii) Innovating new ways and ideas to keep work vigorous and fresh. (e) Decline or Disengagement Stage (65 Years Old and Above) The engagement stage presents to the life-time worker a major life transition of retirement (Shultz & Wang, 2011). In a Malaysian scenario, the engagement stage may start earlier due to the early retirement age. This stage shifts the focus of an individual from life roles at work place to life roles in the family and community. The disengagement tasks involve “deceler ating workloads” and reducing productivity levels, “planning for retirement” and finally ends with withdrawal of individuals from the workforce and actually “living their retirement” (see Figure 3.3).
Super (1955) emphasises the importance of career maturity in managing a career life stage. Super defines career maturity as a group of physical, psychological, and social characteristics that represent the individual’s readiness and ability to deal with the developmental problems and challenges that are faced (Brown, 2012). While career maturity can be seen from a societal perspective as a rather static concept (a matching of activities and age), the individual perception of the situation and the decision-making problem turns it into a dynamic concept (activities that are related to the problem that needs to be solved). Decision making process becomes easier as a person matures in his or her job. The concept of “career maturity” was later replaced by the term “career adaptability” (Savickas, 1997) after taking into consideration limitations and constraints in using a biologically based term. According to Super (1951), not all individuals proceed through the developmental stage in a neat order as outlined earlier. Movement through stages and tasks constitute a maxi cycle of career development, which also includes several mini-cycles through which individuals recycle by revisiting their similar tasks early in their life (Hartung, 2013). Table 3.1 denotes the notion of recycling through developmental stages.
Life Space/Life Roles The life space aspect of Super’s theory concerns the connection of various life roles of individuals over their life span. As presented by the inner arch or the Life Career Rainbow, the life space constitutes core roles an individual can play in their life. Super (1990) proposed that individuals will have six major life roles over their life span. In chronological order, the following l ife roles are as a: (a) Child; (b) Student; (c) Leisurite; (d) Citizen; (e) Worker; and (f) Homemaker or parents. The original Super’s life career rainbow shows how the role varies within the lifetime of the individuals. Each arch represents a role in a lifetime and the thickness of the shaded area indicates the importance to corresponding life role at a particular age. The salience inventory by Super and Nevill (1985) measures the importance of all the roles, except that of child, in terms of commitment, participation and value expectations.
An individual may take on the role of a student several times during his or her life span. During the school years, studying i ncludes activities such as going to school, taking a course or attending co-curricular activities. Individuals may choose to continue their education at several points in their life. In the current situation, the role as a student may extend until old age. Many people continue education on a part-time basis at some stage during their life either for pleasure or to enhance their current employment or for success (Sharf, 2006). Leisure is considered as an important component in life. Liptak (2000) stresses the importance of leisure in various life spans. According to Liptak, leisure can play an important role in career development than work, especially in the beginning and end of the life span. Therefore, the role as a leisurite is seen as increasingly important over the life span. Leisure serves as a substitute for work and trying out new activities (Sharf, 2006). Leisure activities can also assist individuals in balancing their other life roles and avoiding life stressors. The role as a citizen will become increasingly important as a person matures. Individuals in the maintenance stage are more likely to participate in a community service, trade unions and political parties. This participation will gradually increase over time as they find more meaning in these activities which contributes to their self-concept. The most important and salient role in the life of an individual will be as a worker. Most individuals actively play this role from the age of 25 to 65 years old. During this period, many adults may work at one or more jobs which define the most significant part of their career development. Similar to other roles, the importance a person places upon being a home maker or a parent will determine the amount of time she or he focuses on that particular role. Some individuals give more weight to being parents while their children are growing up and gradually let go as they become adults. Meanwhile, others may focus on the role as a worker while their children are still young but later discover the need to give more attention as their children become teenagers. As shown in the career rainbow, the role as a home maker becomes important once again after retirement age as individuals spend more time at home.
Self-concept Super and his colleagues were involved in the research effort on self-concept for over 50 years. Super uses the self- concept theory as the third keystone to frame the life span, life space theory (Hartung, 2013). The self-concept theory is key to understanding the lifelong development of a person and should be seen as including not only an internalised personal view of the self, but also an individual’s view of the situation or condition in which he or she exists. The self understanding and the behaviour will always be influenced by the environment. Super et al. (1997 as cited in Zunker, 1994) concluded that vocational self-concept develops through the following: (a) Physical and mental growth; (b) Observations of work; (c) Identification with working adults; (d) General environment; and (e) General experiences. According to the life span, life space theory, individuals develop not one but rather constellations of self-concept, or ideas about themselves based on experiences in wide arrays of life spheres. The primary concern is the vocational life sphere where individuals make decisions on vocational self-concepts followed by career choices (Brown & Lent, 2013). Additionally, under influence of the learning process while exercising a job, t he person may increase or expand his or her skills and even develop changes in the self-concept theory. This will lead to a situation where the person seeks a new work situation or attempts to adjust to the changes in the position so that the person will feel comfortable and satisfied again. Since, neither the worker nor the job is static, the work life will be a process of constant change or adjustment. Super’s (1990) Archway of Career Determinants (see Figure 3.5) illustrates the unique architecture of self and self-concept development and visually models the personal and situational factors that contribute to life span, life space development.
IMPLICATIONS OF SUPER’S THEORY TOWARDS CAREER GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING Super’s theory brings focus on lifelong career development. It reminds practitioners the need to understand the life stages and life roles of a client to assist them in their career choice and development beginning from childhood and proceeds continuously over their lifetime. Due to this theory, the career counselling model moved from the idea of matching individuals to the environment to the idea of understanding the maturity of clients in making career decisions at different life stages. The life span, life space theory can be used to develop career guidance and counselling programmes by focusing on a specific development stage at a time. This enables the counsellor to attend clients from the same stage of development effectively. This also enables counsellors to distribute their responsibilities more effectively. Super’s work emphasises the importance of self-concept when making career decisions. Individuals need to identify their life r oles and understand its impact
on their career development. Career counsellors play a significant role in assisting clients to answer the question of “Who am I?” and guide them to relate what they know about themselves with career information. The unique blend of life roles during any particular stage of development imposes a great challenge to individuals. A comprehensive career and guidance programme may not only require the counsellor to attend to a client’s career related issues but also to his or her personal related issues. By applying the developmental approach in career guidance and counselling practice, practitioners work on assisting clients to manage their career and life roles into a liveable and satisfying pattern. Super’s life span, life space theory is applicable to clients from multicultural backgrounds by exploring and understanding the significance of various life roles and career development from their unique cultural perspectives.
GINZBERG’S CAREER DEVELOPMENT THEORY Ginzberg, Ginsburg, Axelrad and Herma introduced one of the most significant theories of career development in their book entitled Occupational Choice: An Approach to General Theory (1951). Their study focused on the determinants of career choices of upper middle class white adolescence. One of the objectives was to identify and evaluate the major factors in the vocational decision-making of individuals during the successive period of his maturation. Ginzberg (1952) stated that no adequate theory has been developed to explain how the multiplicity of factors within the environment, and the forces within the individuals, act and react on each other so that an individual could finally resolve the problem of their occupational choice. These are the three basic assumptions underlying Ginzberg’s theory of career development: (a) Occupational choice is a process; (b) The process is largely irreversible; and (c) Compromise is an essential aspect of every choice.
Ginzberg et al. (1951) argue that there are many stages to an individual’s career choice and that a one off matching session as practiced in the trait and factor based theories are not adequate to tr uly understanding an individual’s career choices. Ginzberg and associates highlighted that the career decision making process happens in three stages as follows: (a) Fantasy stage (up to 11 years old); (b) Tentative stage (between 11 and 17 years old); and (c) Realistic stage (between 17 and young adulthood). Now, let us explore the following description of the three stages: (a) Fantasy Stage (Up to 11 Years Old) During this stage, children only fantasise about their career choice, taking examples from the most significant role models around them. During the fantasy stage, children believe they can become whoever they choose to be.
Zunker (2006) described the fantasy stage as a purely play orientati on which gradually becomes work oriented and r eflects an initial preference for certain kinds of activities. Children translate their impulses and needs into career choice. Although some children are aware that their interest may change in the future, they are still vague about career choices due to lack of exposure to career information.
(b) Tentative Stage (From 11 to 17 Years Old) This stage is called tentative stage because adolescents have not incorporated the reality factors in their decision-making considerations as yet. Ginzberg et al. (1951) proposed that at the age of 11, adolescents will stop fantasising about career choices and gradually start to base their choices on interests, capacities, values and finally experience the transitional process marked by gradual recognition of work requirements and possible entry to college or job. Let us look at the description of the four phases: (i) The Interest Phase At the beginning of the interest phase, adolescents are more interested to talk about what they like to do than what they are able to do. The adolescents will begin to understand more about the world of work through involvement in the community and exposure through social media. They will begin to ask themselves, “Is this something I would like to do?” when involving themselves in activities or observing the career roles of their significant others. During this phase, quality of performance is not a concern to most adolescents. In the US, involvement in high school sports which was initially based on interest has grown to be the foundation of career for highly professional athletes. (ii) The Capacity Phase At about 13 and 14 years of age, the capacity phase begins. At this point, adolescents are able to more accurately assess their own abilities. According to Ginzberg et al. (1951), the educational process becomes more important in their preparation for work, their time perspective improves and they are more likely to have realistic views about themselves and their future. A counsellor can help an adolescent to assess their capacities during a counselling session to help them with his or her career decision-making process. (iii) The Value Phase The development of values tentatively begins at the age of 15 and 16 years old. Most adolescents will begin to take into consideration their values when making a career decision. They will start to consider the answers to questions such as “Which is more important to me, money or helping others?” or “Will my choice help me in being a better person?” and other questions relating to values. They may also start considering future life plans which include marriage and self development.
(iv) The Transition Phase The transition phase will usually occur at the end of high school years when a teenager makes decisions to pursue higher education or work. Decision-making on what major to take, which university to enter or what job to take on is an important step towards a more realistic view of life and career. (c) Realistic Stage (Between 17 to Young Adulthood) The transition phase from the tentative stage will move into the realistic stage. This is where teenagers will seek to work out a compromise between their interest, abilities and values and the opportunities and limitations in their environment (Ginzberg, 1952). The realistic stage consists of exploration, crystallisation and the specification phase. These phases take place in t he following ways: (i) During the exploration phase, individuals will seek to gather as much information as possible about the world of work. Following this, they seek for the last time to acquaint themself with their alternatives (Ginzberg, 1952). (ii) This is followed by the crystallisation phase, whereby options become clearer and individuals seek to make career choices. (iii) Lastly, during the specification phase, individuals will delimit their career choices and focus on the best one.
IMPLICATIONS OF GINZBERG’S THEORY TOWARDS CAREER GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING Ginzberg’s theory contributes to the understanding of the role of development as the basis for career development. Career choice no longer looks at the aspect of pre-determined traits and factors but rather it is part of the developmental process. Since Ginzberg et al. (1951) rejects the idea of a one-off matching session between a client’s traits and factors in a particular environment. His developmental theory suggests that offering guidance at multiple points in an individual’s life is of key importance. Ginz berg’s theory implies the importance of a school career guidance programme during the adolescence and teenage years of each individual. Good career guidance and a counselling programme during these periods of career development will provide a basis for effective career choice in the adult years. The career guidance programmes could involve adolescents as early as 11 years old to enrich their knowledge about the available careers. Ginzberg’s theory has been compared to Super’s life span, life space theory. The realistic period of Ginzberg’s theory possesses some similarities with Su per’s exploration stage. It can be said that Super’s theory continues where Ginzberg has left off. Ginzberg and associates did not continue to explain on the career development of individuals once they have entered the occupation. Ginzberg and associates basically focus on career choices while Super has extended his theory to look at lifelong career development.
