NADYA A. FOUAD1 AND NEETA KANTAMNENI2
1University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI
2University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
In an ideal world, every individual would be free to choose the optimal occupation for themselves, have the resources to pursue that occupational dream, and successfully implement that goal. That is, in a nutshell, the American dream, which James Truslow Adams (1931) defined as the “dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every [person], with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement” (p. 404). This definition implies that each person's ability should be the sole determinant of their success and that opportunity should be available to all to seek that success. Career counseling grew out of efforts at the beginning of the twentieth century to help recent immigrants and others with limited resources achieve the American dream (Flores, 2009).
However, then, as well as today, the fundamental assumptions underlying this notion of an ideal world may not fit the worldviews of some individuals, may not be available as a dream for other individuals, and may not be possible for others. Not everyone makes decisions about work based on their abilities. Opportunities available to individuals, and their resources to take advantage of those opportunities, differ dramatically by social class and race/ethnicity. And finally, not everyone's dream to be better and fuller is achieved through work, and not everyone has a dream to be richer. Dreams and expectations about work and career are very much shaped by individuals' cultural expectations and by the society in which they live. It is critical, therefore, for vocational psychologists and career counselors to have an understanding of the role that cultural context plays in helping to form perceptions of work, in the factors that go into decision‐making about work, and in the ways that counselors can help clients with career‐ and work‐related concerns.
We focus on one aspect of cultural expectations in this chapter, that of Racial and ethnic background. Other chapters will provide a review of research and recommendations for other contextual influences, such as gender and social class. It is important to provide a critical lens on specific aspects of culture to help elucidate research and practice due to those specific influences. However, we and others have argued elsewhere that it is important to understand the multiple contextual influences on work‐ and career‐related choices (Flores, Martinez, McGillen, & Milord, 2019; Kantamneni & Fouad, under review). Thus, we encourage readers to note that although these chapters focus on various aspects of cultural context separately, in reality individuals are influenced by multiple contextual influences simultaneously.
In this chapter, we first provide some background on the role of Racial/ethnic disparities in educational and occupational attainment to provide a basis for our argument that it is important to understand the role of Racial/ethnic background in understanding influences on individuals' career‐ and work‐related decisions. We then review the available research from the past two decades on the cultural validity of many of the major vocational theories, including those presented in Chapters 2 through 8 of this volume. Following this review, we consider recent research on specific culture‐relevant factors that have been shown to differ across Racial/ethnic groups, such as barriers and supports, the role of racism, acculturation, and the role salience of the worker role. Although some of the research we discuss has been tied to specific theoretical perspectives (e.g., barriers and supports are featured in social cognitive career theory; SCCT; role salience is a central construct in Super's theory of career development), much of the research on race/ethnicity in relation to career behavior has not been tied to a particular theoretical framework. Finally, we focus on the implications of this research for practitioners and end with recommendations for both researchers and practitioners.
A great deal has been written about the large disparities in educational and occupational attainment between White European Americans and individuals from Racial/ethnic minority backgrounds. The data clearly indicate that Racial/ethnic minority individuals are disproportionately likely to drop out of high school, not complete college, and be overrepresented in lower‐paying and lower‐skilled occupations (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019). There has also been much written about the causes of these educational and occupational disparities. We will not revisit those debates here and instead focus on the consequences of disparities on occupational outcomes.
First, it is important to understand the proportion of various Racial/ethnic groups in the United States. The 2018 census contains the most recent data collected on individuals' self‐identification of Racial/ethnic group membership (Census Bureau, 2019). Individuals could identify as Hispanic/LatinX (as an ethnicity) and also could identify as a member of a racial category. This is a recent change in census data collection that recognizes that those of South or Central American descent may belong to many different racial groups. The percentage of individuals identifying as White, non‐Hispanic, was 60.4%, continuing a downward trend that has been apparent since the 1970 census (i.e., the percentage of those identifying as White has decreased from 87% in 1970 to 83% in 1980 to 80% in 1990 to 69% in 2000 and to 63% in 2010; Census Bureau, 2019).
Those identifying as Hispanic/LatinX in 2018 grew the most of any Racial/ethnic group to 18.3% from 12.6% in 2000 (Census Bureau, 2019). Those identifying as Black/African American, American Indian or Native American, and Asian or Pacific Islander, represented, respectively, 13.4%, 1.3%, and 6.1% of the population. Finally, 2.7% of the population identified as belonging to two or more races. Geographically, Racial/ethnic diversity has increased across all regions of the United States, suggesting that career counselors across the country are very likely to be called upon to serve clients who represent Racial/ethnic backgrounds different than their own.
We noted earlier that poorer educational and occupational outcomes are disproportionately represented among Racial/ethnic minorities relative to their numbers in the population. For example, in 2018, 94% of Whites had completed high school by the time they were 25; these figures were slightly lower for African Americans (92%), higher (97%) for Asian Americans, lower for Hispanics (87%), and substantially lower (75%) for American Indian/Alaska Natives. These Racial/ethnic educational disparities become even more pronounced in considering college participation rates. In 2018, nearly 41% of all Whites, 36% of Blacks, 36% of Hispanic, 65% of Asian Americans, and 20% of American Indians had attended college (U.S. Department of Education, 2018). There continued to be disparities in college completion as well. For those entering college in 2010, 6‐year graduation rates differed by race/ethnicity, with 64% of Whites, 40% of Blacks, 54% of Hispanics, 74% of Asians, and 39% of American Indians graduating.
As may be expected, these educational disparities also play out in occupational attainment. Although Racial/ethnic groups do not differ markedly in their overall participation in the workforce, with about 63% of Whites, 61.6% of African Americans, 59.6% of Native Americans, 63.2% of Asians, and 65.8% of Hispanics in the civilian labor force in 2016 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019), they do differ in the types of occupations in which they are employed. African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics are underrepresented in management and professional occupations and overrepresented in food preparation, building cleaning, protective services, transportation, and service occupations (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019). Asian Americans are overrepresented in scientific and engineering occupations and underrepresented in many service occupations (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019). In June 2018, the unemployment rate nationally was 3.9% but only 3.5% for Whites and 3.0% for Asians, yet 7.5% for African Americans and 4.7% for Hispanics (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019). Even though the national unemployment rate is relatively low, and despite four decades of affirmative action policies and relatively even educational attainment, as we noted earlier, there continue to be dramatic differences in employment across specific occupational areas; these differences have not substantially changed since 1980 (Byars‐Winston, Fouad, & Wen, 2015).
The statistics presented here highlight the differences in educational and occupational outcomes for Racial/ethnic minority clients and students. These differences may have resulted partly from individual choices but can also represent choices constrained by structural barriers to educational and occupational attainment. Each individual's career and work choices are shaped by his or her cultural context, and Racial/ethnic background is a large component of that context. Understanding the role of race and ethnicity in work and career decision‐making is a critically important part of cultural competence for all researchers and practitioners.
In this section, we discuss the role that race and ethnicity may play in most of the major career theories and also review research on race and ethnicity that has been conducted in relation to these theoretical perspectives. We acknowledge that some scholars (e.g., Leong & Pearce, 2011; Young, Marshall, & Valach, 2007) have exhorted the field to build theories from within each culture's perspective, rather than trying to make existing theories more culturally relevant. We agree with them, but we also believe it is important to examine the cultural validity of the major career theories.
Holland's theory (1997) asserts that career choice is an expression of an individual's personality. Holland argues that cultural and personal factors work together to create distinctive personality types; in turn, environments are also characterized by personality types. People and their environments may be described in terms of six basic personality and environment types (realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional [RIASEC]). The main premise in Holland's theory is to help people understand their personality types in order to find a match with work environments (see Nauta, Chapter 3, this volume). A strong match between an individual's personality and his or her work environment is hypothesized to be related to job satisfaction and job tenure.
Extensive research has examined the cross‐cultural validity of Holland's theory. This line of research has examined whether the six vocational personality types exist and correspond to Holland's hypothesized RIASEC pattern in various cultural groups, whether cultural variables predict vocational interests, and whether key tenets proposed by Holland (e.g., congruence) are applicable in cross‐cultural populations. Numerous studies have investigated whether vocational interests fall in a RIASEC pattern; several methodologically rigorous studies have found similar structures of the six interest types for the major U.S. ethnic groups (e.g., Armstrong, Hubert, & Rounds, 2003; Day & Rounds, 1998; Kantamneni, 2014; Tracey & Rounds, 1993). However, there have been a few exceptions. For example, Flores, Spanierman, Armstrong, and Velez (2006) found that adult LatinXs did not have a circular RIASEC ordering, and Kantamneni and Fouad (2011) found that African American females and LatinX males did not possess a circular RIASEC ordering, suggesting that the perceived structure of the world of work may be different for these groups.
Research has provided limited evidence that cultural variables predict vocational interests. In an investigation of the vocational interests of South Asian Americans, Kantamneni and Fouad (2013) found that acculturation and cultural values predicted interests. Participants who identified more strongly with their South Asian cultural background had higher realistic interests, those who possessed strong individualistic values measured low in social interests, and those with stronger collectivistic values reported higher social interests. Similarly, Tang, Fouad, and Smith (1999) found that family influences and acculturation predicted vocational interests for Asian American college students. Asian Americans who were Anglo‐acculturated displayed atypical interests. Cultural variables can also moderate the relationship between personality and vocational interests. In a study including data from 20 countries, Ott‐Holland, Huang, Ryan, Elizondo, and Wadlington (2013) found that personality traits were not as strongly related to occupational interests in cultures with high collectivistic values.
Relatively little research has examined key tenets proposed by Holland (e.g., congruence, differentiation) within diverse Racial/ethnic populations. A meta‐analysis conducted by Tsabari, Tziner, and Meir (2005) found that culture moderated the relationship between congruence and job satisfaction; participants from individualistic societies displayed a stronger relationship between interest congruence and satisfaction than did those from collectivist societies. Gupta and Tracey (2005) and Kantamneni and Fouad (2013) each found that cultural factors, such as dharma, Asian values, and collectivistic values, did not affect congruence between expressed and measured interests.
Despite extensive research on the cross‐cultural validity of Holland's theory, there continue to be areas where more research is needed. First, despite Holland having listed barriers and lack of resources as factors that affect congruence–outcome relations, research on Holland's theory has largely ignored the barriers and limited opportunities faced by many individuals (Hardin, 2007). Second, Holland's theory does not explicitly address the role of culture in developing vocational identities, and the few studies in this area have found contradictory evidence as to how cultural variables are related to vocational interests. More research is needed that investigates how cultural factors directly and indirectly affect interest development. Third, Holland's theory does not pay marked attention to the various societal influences that may affect how an individual perceives his or her environment (Hardin, 2007). Discrimination, barriers, or other forms of prejudice in the workplace may affect how work environments are experienced.
In sum, much of the research examining the cultural validity of Holland's theory has provided evidence for its use with diverse populations. However, some studies (e.g., Flores et al., 2006; Kantamneni & Fouad, 2011) have not found a circular or hexagonal RIASEC pattern of interests for specific Racial/ethnic groups, and the research examining the direct and indirect influence of cultural variables on vocational interests and other important constructs (e.g., congruence, differentiation) in Holland's theory is limited. Existing research has suggested that cultural factors may play a role in the development and expression of vocational interests. More research is needed to reach definitive conclusions as to whether Holland's theory is an appropriate and valid theoretical framework for people of color in the United States.
The theory of work adjustment (TWA) is another person–environment fit model that predicts how well individuals will adjust to their job environments (Dawis, 2005). The model focuses on how well individuals' abilities match the abilities required by the job (e.g., individuals' satisfactoriness) and how well individuals' needs and work values are met by the reinforcers in the environment (e.g., individuals' satisfaction). If individuals are both satisfied and satisfactory, they are predicted to stay in the job environment (see Swanson & Schneider, Chapter 2, this volume).
The theory is based on an individual differences perspective, a perspective that Dawis (1994) embraced as viewing “people as individuals and not as members of groups” (p. 41). He noted that focusing on group membership was an inaccurate way to estimate abilities and needs and recommended instead that researchers focus on individuals' reinforcement history. In essence, he predicted that race and ethnicity influence person–environment fit, which in turn influences a person's job satisfaction. Rounds and Hesketh (1994), however, argued the importance of making explicit the effect of race and ethnicity on work adjustment, particularly for variables, such as discrimination, that may moderate an individual's satisfaction.
Lovelace and Rosen (1996) studied the relationship between cultural variables and person–environment fit, hypothesizing that Racial/ethnic minority group members may feel less of a fit to their environments than do White managers. They found that African American managers reported lower satisfaction with fit than White or Hispanic managers. However, the effect size was very small (.03). Lyons and O'Brien (2006) and Lyons, Velez, Mehta, and Neill (2014) studied TWA for African Americans. Lyons and O'Brien found that need–reinforcer correspondence was highly related (r = .66) to satisfaction and that racial climate did not moderate the relationship between satisfaction and intentions to leave the organization for African American employees. Lyons et al. studied TWA with economically distressed African Americans, also finding support for the model, but also noting the importance of racial climate as a contextual variable added to the model. Eggerth and Flynn (2012) also identified TWA work values in their qualitative study with LatinX immigrants. They conducted ten interviews with LatinXs who held low‐wage jobs. They found that most of the reinforcers were described in the women's narratives about their favorite and least‐liked jobs, with TWA's compensation and security values noted by each participant.
In sum, the limited research on the role of race/ethnicity in TWA has been shown to support Dawis's (1994) contention that race and ethnicity influence the perception of person–environment fit, which influences TWA outcome variables, such as job satisfaction. The two studies that specifically analyzed TWA constructs have found that the reinforcers proposed by the theory may be used to describe the work values and needs of LatinX and African American participants and that need–reinforcer correspondence explained a substantial amount of variance in African American workers' satisfaction. Clearly, more research is needed to extend these findings to other groups. We also recommend that researchers focus on reinforcers that may be unique to Racial/ethnic minority populations, such as working with other minority individuals, or on perceptions of racial fit that may not be applicable to White participants.
Super's developmental theory is one of the most influential in vocational psychology. As Betz (2008) noted, it revolutionized the field when first introduced in 1953. The theory is summarized by Hartung (Chapter 4, this volume). Savickas's career construction theory (see Chapter 6, this volume) can be seen as an update to Super's theory, one that views career development from a constructionist perspective. The latter emphasizes the view “that individuals actively create their own subjective and personal career realities” (Hartung & Taber, 2008).
Super, Savickas, and Super (1996) included Racial and ethnic background as part of the cultural milieu in which children begin to develop a sense of self‐concept that becomes implemented in occupational choices. Super's early work was extensively researched primarily on White, upper‐middle‐class men, although by the 1980s, researchers examined the applicability of the theory to women and people of color. More recent research has examined factors related to career adaptability and exploration (e.g., Kenny & Bledsoe, 2005). The latter study defined adaptability as career planning, career outcome expectations, school identification, and perceptions of barriers, finding that parents and teachers were significant sources of support for urban youth. Specifically, family support was related to perceptions of barriers and career outcome expectations, and teacher support was related to identifying with school.
Savickas (2019) further defines the self as shaped by culture, noting that “identities are co‐constructed by a psychological self and a social context” (p. 18). By definition, the social context is shaped by the individual's cultural group memberships. As the individual grows and develops and expresses his or her identity through narratives, there are many influences on the narrative that will be shaped by cultural messages. Savickas notes that this perspective is influenced by Western cultural values, which assume that the career narrative is composed individually. However, he also notes that individuals are always influenced by others: “identity is seldom an individual project” (p. 19). Thus, in collectivist societies, individuals' narratives may be highly influenced by the expectations of others because of the importance placed on valuing others' views.
Blustein et al. (2010) examined the role of race and ethnicity in a qualitative study based on career construction theory. They found that half of 32 students in their study had incorporated the perception of barriers due to racism into their construction of their careers and future, and half were unaware of the effect of their race or ethnicity. Of those who had incorporated a perspective on racism into their overall career narrative, half had developed mechanisms to counter or be resistant to that racism, and half were more pessimistic about their futures because of racism. The authors concluded with a suggestion that career intervention programs incorporate tools to foster resistance to racism.
In sum, much more research is needed to understand how Racial and ethnic group background influences career development across the life span, including the ways in which individuals construct their careers. Future research needs to investigate how career adaptability is shaped by different cultural values and different barriers due to racism and its effects. Career adaptability, as a behavior, has now also been incorporated into the social cognitive career self‐management (Lent & Brown, 2013) model as well as the psychology of working theory (Duffy, Blustein, Diemer, & Autin, 2016), and the latter, in particular, has begun to examine the effects of racism on career choices. The research of Blustein et al. (2010) is a promising beginning, but more research needs to be done to see if career narratives differ in systematic ways across Racial/ethnic groups.
SCCT was developed to understand and explain the vocational development of individuals from a broad range of backgrounds (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994, 2000). Briefly stated, the social cognitive career framework asserts that both person inputs (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, ability status) and background contextual affordances create the learning experiences to which an individual is exposed; these learning experiences influence self‐efficacy expectations and outcome expectations, which, in turn, influence interests, goals, and actions. SCCT integrates both individual variables (e.g., interests, values, abilities) and cultural and contextual variables (e.g., environmental factors) to fully understand the career development process (see Lent, Chapter 5, this volume). SCCT operates from an understanding that the environment “plays an undeniable, potent role in helping to determine who gets to do what and where, for how long, and with what sorts of rewards” (Lent & Sheu, 2009, p. 692).
Due to its emphasis on contextual and sociocultural influences on the career development process, research utilizing SCCT has greatly enhanced our knowledge of how individuals from minority Racial/ethnic backgrounds make career decisions. For example, numerous studies have tested the theory's hypotheses within LatinX and Mexican American student populations (e.g., Berbery & O'Brien, 2018; Lee, Flores, Navarro, & Kanagui‐Munoz, 2015; McWhirter, Garcia, & Bines, 2018), African American student populations (e.g., Dickinson, Abrams, & Tokar, 2017; Gainor & Lent, 1998), and Asian American student populations (e.g., Hui & Lent, 2018; Kantamneni, Dharmalingam, Orley, & Kanagasingam, 2018). Additionally, a plethora of research (e.g., Fouad & Smith, 1996; Gainor & Lent, 1998; Lee et al., 2015; Lent et al., 2005; Lent, Lopez, Lopez, & Sheu, 2008; Navarro, Flores, & Worthington, 2007) has examined the predictive nature of social cognitive variables (e.g., self‐efficacy, outcome expectations) on math‐ and science‐related interests and goals. Much of this research has examined either tests of SCCT's larger models (e.g., interest, choice) or the predictive nature of specific contextual and individual input variables on social cognitive career constructs (e.g., how cultural factors affect career decision‐making self‐efficacy).
Research has found that self‐efficacy and outcome expectations predicted math and science interests and goals in Mexican American, Latinx, and African American high school students (Fouad & Smith, 1996; Navarro et al., 2007), African American college students (Byars‐Winston, 2006; Ezeofor & Lent, 2014; Lent et al., 2005, 2008; Waller, 2006), and Asian American students (Kelly, Gunsalus, & Gunsalus, 2009; Kantamneni et al., 2018). For example, in two separate investigations, Lent et al. (2005, 2008) compared the social cognitive choice model in African American and European American students majoring in engineering. They found that the model accounted for academic interests and choices in both groups of students. Lee et al. (2015) found longitudinal support for an academic persistence model for Latinx and White engineering students; engineering self‐efficacy was related to engineering goals, which in turn predicted future persistence. Byars‐Winston, Estrada, Howard, Davis, and Zalapa (2010) also found support for the social cognitive model in predicting interests and goal commitment among biological science and engineering majors in diverse samples of African American, LatinX(a), Asian American, and Native American college students. More recently, Byars‐Winston and Rogers (2019) found that self‐efficacy and outcome expectations predicted career intentions to become researchers among African American/Black, Latinx, and Asian American students.
In sum, because of its emphasis on contextual influences, SCCT lends itself well to understanding the role of cultural influences on the career development process for Racial/ethnic minorities. In fact, a review of current multicultural research with Racial/ethnic minorities found that much of the recent research examining the role of cultural influences on career development has utilized a social cognitive framework (Kantamneni & Fouad, under review). As a whole, this research has provided cross‐cultural support for the social cognitive career model with various Racial/ethnic groups. However, there continues to be a need for additional research that examines how social cognitive career variables operate with other cultural variables, such as ethnic identity, acculturation, and cultural values.
The psychology of working theory (Duffy et al., 2016) was developed to explicitly incorporate the contextual factors that constrain individuals' work and career choices. The theory, described by Blustein and Duffy (Chapter 7, this volume), predicts that economic constraints and being marginalized (e.g., due to sexism or racism) affect willingness to work. Willingness to work and career adaptability interact to affect finding decent work. Decent work, as defined by the International Labor Organization (Duffy et al., 2016), is physically safe work, in which workers have adequate free time and rest, have adequate compensation, access to health care, and work–life balance. Finding decent work has the positive work outcomes of meeting survival, social connectedness, and self‐determination needs, which lead to work fulfillment and an overall sense of well‐being.
The theory also postulates four additional variables that moderate the relationships between economic constraints and marginalization and between work volition and career adaptability: proactive personality, critical consciousness, social support, and external economic conditions. The construct of marginalization is based on Cole's (2009) perspective on intersectionality, that relegation to a less powerful (or marginalized position) is multiplicative, or that marginalization from social class intersects with marginalization from racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, and other forms of discrimination. The authors note that “social marginalization and oppression reduce access to resources and to decent work … [creating] barriers that constrain opportunities for people around the globe” (Duffy et al., 2016, p. 132).
Though very new, the model is receiving extensive study, both quantitatively and qualitatively. For example, a qualitative study with 12 undocumented immigrants (Autin, Duffy, Jacobson, Dosani, Barker, & Bott, 2018) found that economic constraints and limited mobility were significant barriers for work volition, but social support and public policy changes were facilitative of work volition. Guerrero and Singh (2013) found that 27 Mexican American women with low educational attainment (3/4 had not finished high school) reported work needs in all three areas: survival, social connectedness, and self‐determination. However, in a study of 526 culturally diverse adults, Duffy et al. (2018) found mixed support for the model's predictors of decent work. Specifically, they found that experiences of marginalization and economic constraints were negatively related to work volition, while work volition and career adaptability were related to decent work. They did not, however, find that economic resources were related to marginalization, and economic constraints were not directly related to decent work, but the relationship was mediated by work volition. Much more research is needed on the application of this theory to Racially and ethnically diverse populations, but as the theory was explicitly developed to incorporate contextual factors known to affect Racial/ethnic individuals, the model promises to help us further understand factors that influence their work choices and outcomes.
In the previous section, we briefly reviewed multicultural considerations and applications of the major vocational theories. However, a number of cultural factors deserve attention in their own right, based on the assumption that they have the potential to influence the career behavior of diverse persons. Some of these factors have been studied in relation to particular career theories; others are not currently aligned well with the major theories. This section discusses how these factors—in particular, cultural values, acculturation, ethnic identity, role models, perceptions of discrimination, barriers and supports, and differences between aspirations and expectations—may shape the vocational development of Racial/ethnic minority persons.
Cultural values can have a meaningful impact on the career choices of Racial/ethnic minorities. Take, for example, a LatinX college student who comes from a cultural background that emphasizes the values of familismo and colectivismo. This student may make career decisions that meet cultural or family expectations or that allow her to give back to her community, regardless of her interests, and family values may be a social outcome expectation. Despite the potentially powerful influence cultural values can have on the career development process, little research to date has fully explicated the relationship between cultural values and career decision‐making. Only a handful of studies have examined the influence of cultural values on the career development process of Racial/ethnic minority populations. As mentioned previously, Tsabari et al. (2005) investigated whether culture moderated the relationship between congruence and job satisfaction, finding that interest congruence was more predictive of job satisfaction in societies that possessed an individualistic value orientation.
Kantamneni and Fouad (2013) found that the cultural values of individualism and collectivism predicted social interests in South Asian American college students. Kantamneni et al. (2018) also found that Asian values positively predicted greater self‐efficacy in occupations in which Asian Americans have high representation, which in turn predicted greater interests in these occupations. These findings suggest that Asian values may be related to stronger interests in more traditional careers. Similarly, a study by Garriott, Raque‐Bogdan, Zoma, Mackie‐Hernandez, and Lavin (2017) examined a social cognitive career model for math and science career goals with Mexican American students. They found that the value of familismo positively predicted performance accomplishments, which in turn predicted self‐efficacy and interests in math and science. Family supports also directly predicted self‐efficacy and goals, suggesting that both the cultural value of familism and supports from family can directly and indirectly play a role in math and science interests and choices for Mexican American students.
Hui and Lent (2018) proposed a culture‐specific social cognitive career model for Asian Americans. Rather than incorporating familial and cultural influences as proximal factors in the social cognitive career model as previous research has done, Hui and Lent adapted the model itself to include family support as a predictor of self‐efficacy and outcome expectations as well as a moderator between interests and choice/goals. Asian cultural values were also hypothesized to directly predict family support and choice/goals, and to moderate the relationships between family influences and choice/goals and between interests and choice/goals. Research on this model with Asian American students found the model fit the data well for both traditional and nontraditional career domains, suggesting that a culturally adapted social cognitive career model for Asian American students may be a valid framework.
Two studies also examined the influence of cultural values on the process of career counseling. Kim and Atkinson (2002) found that Asian American clients who expressed a strong adherence to Asian cultural values rated Asian American career counselors higher on dimensions of effectiveness than clients with low adherence to Asian cultural values. Clients with low adherence to Asian cultural values rated European American counselors higher on empathic understanding than their Asian American counterparts. Kim, Li, and Liang (2002) investigated the effect of career counseling orientation and cultural values on Asian Americans' perceptions of counselors' effectiveness. Results indicated that clients with high adherence to Asian cultural values perceived higher empathic understanding and a stronger working alliance with their counselor than did clients with low adherence to Asian cultural values, regardless of the counselor's Racial/ethnic background.
A series of qualitative investigations have examined the vocational development of African American (Pearson & Bieschke, 2001), LatinX (Gomez et al., 2001), Native American (Juntunen et al., 2001), and Asian American (Fouad et al., 2008) adults. These studies highlighted the influential role that cultural values can have on the vocational development of Racial/ethnic minorities. Gomez and colleagues found that cultural variables such as cultural values, gender role messages, and familial career aspirations were related to participants' vocational development. Specifically, participants indicated that cultural values of familism and collectivism influenced how they made career decisions; participants' families were typically oriented toward a collective identity, and participants indicated that they had a responsibility toward the well‐being of their family and community. Similarly, Juntunen and colleagues demonstrated that collectivism was strongly related to career development among Native Americans; career success was viewed as a collective experience, and success was often measured by an ability to contribute to the well‐being of others within their community. Pearson and Bieschke (2001) investigated the role of cultural factors on persistence in maintaining successful careers for African American women finding that participants perceived receiving messages about work values (e.g., work ethic, altruism) from their families.
Finally, Fouad et al. (2008) found that cultural values emerged as a typical category in their qualitative analysis of Asian American career development; cultural values were found to be related to participants' communication styles at work, their ideas of career and vocational success, their sense of family obligations, and how career exploration was facilitated. Interestingly, Fouad and her colleagues noted that cultural values were primarily transmitted through the families of their participants, and it was often difficult for the participants to delineate between cultural and familial values. As a whole, both qualitative and quantitative investigations highlight the influential role of cultural values in constructing meaning through work for individuals from Racial/ethnic minority backgrounds. Although this research is limited, it has suggested that cultural values may be an essential component of the career development process for Racial/ethnic minority group members; further research is needed to clarify this relationship.
Acculturation has long been hypothesized to play an important role in the career development process of ethnic minorities and is often linked to educational and career aspirations, vocational interests, career self‐efficacy, job satisfaction, and career maturity. Much of the current research has focused on LatinX(a)s and Asian Americans. A small number of studies have investigated the relationship between acculturation and educational and career outcomes. For example, Ojeda et al. (2012) examined the relationship between acculturation and career decision self‐efficacy in seventh‐grade students. They found that acculturation predicted career decision self‐efficacy for girls but not for boys, suggesting that acculturation may play different roles in boys' and girls' career development.
In an investigation of the role of acculturation on aspirations, McWhirter, Hackett, and Bandalos (1998) proposed a structural model to predict the educational and career expectations of Mexican American high school girls, finding support for acculturation as a predictor of educational aspirations. Similarly, Flores and O'Brien (2002) found that acculturation was significantly correlated with career choice traditionality, career choice prestige, and career aspirations for Mexican American students; women who were more assimilated to mainstream culture chose more gender‐traditional and less‐prestigious occupations than women who were less assimilated to mainstream culture. Rivera, Chen, Flores, Blumberg, and Ponterotto (2007) found that Anglo acculturation significantly predicted self‐efficacy regarding female‐dominated career options in Hispanic women.
In regard to educational goals and aspirations, Flores et al. (2008) found that Anglo‐oriented acculturation was positively related to educational goal expectations and aspirations in Mexican American high school students; students who were acculturated to mainstream society expressed higher educational aspirations and expectations. Similarly, Flores, Ojeda, Huang, Gee, and Lee (2006) found that Anglo‐oriented acculturation emerged as a significant predictor of high educational goals. Mexican American students who indicated high levels of Anglo‐oriented acculturation were more likely to have higher educational goals than students who were less acculturated to Anglo culture. In a working adult sample, Valdivia and Flores (2012) found that Anglo acculturation was positively related to job satisfaction in Latinx immigrant workers. Specific to math and science, Navarro et al. (2007) found that generation status, Anglo orientation, and Mexican orientation did not significantly predict math and science performance accomplishments; neither did these accomplishments predict math and science outcome expectations or math and science goals.
Vocational research has also examined the relationship between acculturation and vocational outcomes in Asian Americans. Leong (2001) examined the relationship between acculturation and job satisfaction, occupational stress, and supervisors' performance ratings. He found that acculturation to mainstream culture (Anglo orientation) was positively related to job satisfaction and supervisors' performance ratings, and negatively related to occupational stress and strain. Similarly, Nadermann and Eissenstat (2018) found that Korean international students' acculturation to American culture was related to their career decision self‐efficacy both directly and indirectly, through job networking. Hardin, Leong, and Osipow (2001) compared the relationships between career maturity, self‐construals, and acculturation for Asian Americans and European Americans. Results indicated that low‐ and medium‐acculturated (medium to high Asian identification) Asian Americans had significantly higher interdependence and lower career maturity scores than European Americans; however, highly acculturated (high Western identification) Asian Americans did not significantly differ from European Americans.
Finally, Tang et al. (1999) investigated the relationship between acculturation and social cognitive variables and reported a significant negative relationship of acculturation to career self‐efficacy, vocational interests, and career choice. Self‐efficacy was strongly associated with acculturation, which in turn predicted interests and career choice. Individuals who were more Asian acculturated displayed interests in and chose careers that were more typical and representative of Asian Americans (i.e., science or engineering occupations). Asian Americans who were higher in acculturation (Anglo‐acculturated) displayed interests and choices in career fields that were less typical and representative for Asian Americans.
On the whole, these studies suggest that acculturation is intimately related to vocational development; many of the studies highlight the important role that acculturation plays in career and educational aspirations, career maturity, and job satisfaction. Yet research in this area is still minimal, and further research is needed to investigate the relationship between acculturation and vocational outcomes. For example, how is acculturation related to the development of vocational interests, perceptions of vocational opportunities, and perceptions of discrimination? Further, the research examining the relationship between acculturation and career development has primarily focused on Asian American and LatinX populations, with little research examining other groups (e.g., individuals of African or Middle Eastern descent) in the United States.
Only a few studies to date have fully examined how Racial/ethnic identity and attitudes affect the career development process. Gainor and Lent (1998) investigated the relationship between racial identity attitudes and social cognitive career variables (math self‐efficacy, math outcome expectations, math and science interests) for African American college students. They found that social cognitive career variables predicted interests across varying levels of racial identity attitudes. Racial identity attitudes were minimally related to social cognitive variables and did not affect the relationship of social cognitive variables to interests and choices in math and science options. These results suggest that the social cognitive career model may be applicable across different racial identity statuses with African American college students.
Similarly, Gushue and Whitson (2006) examined how ethnic identity and parent and teacher support were related to career decision self‐efficacy and outcome expectations in African American ninth‐grade students; they found that ethnic identity was not related to career decision self‐efficacy or outcome expectations. However, studying Latinx high school students, Gushue (2006) found that ethnic identity was related to career decision‐making self‐efficacy; he also found that the relation of ethnic identity to career decision‐making outcome expectations was mediated by self‐efficacy. Bonifacio, Gushue, and Mejia‐Smith (2018) studied ethnic identity, perceptions of microaggressions, career decision‐making self‐efficacy, and outcome expectations in LatinX college students. They reported that higher ethnic identity was positively related to career decision‐making, but experiencing microaggressions was related to lower self‐efficacy. Specific to math and science, Kelly et al. (2009) investigated how ethnic identity, self‐efficacy, outcome expectations, and career interests predict science and nonscience goal intentions among Korean American college students; they found that ethnic identity did not predict goal intentions.
Two studies have found some relationships between ethnic identity and career variables. Byars‐Winston et al. (2010) found that ethnic identity, other‐group orientation, and perceived campus climate were predictive of academic self‐efficacy and outcome expectations in a group of African American, LatinX, Southeast Asian, and Native American undergraduates majoring in biological science and engineering; other‐group orientation was found to significantly predict self‐efficacy. Similarly, Byars‐Winston (2006) examined how racial ideology (i.e., nationalist, humanist, assimilationist, and oppressed minority) is related to career self‐efficacy, career outcome expectations, career interests, and perceived career barriers in African American college students. She found that two racial ideologies (nationalist and assimilationist) were predictive of career self‐efficacy, outcome expectations, interests, and barriers. A racial ideology that emphasized the uniqueness of being of African descent (nationalist) and an ideology that emphasized commonalities between African Americans and other Americans (assimilationist) were related to career self‐efficacy, outcome expectations, interests, and barriers.
In sum, these studies provide a preliminary understanding of how ethnic identity is related to vocational development. A majority of the studies that have examined the relationship of ethnic identity to career variables have used a social cognitive career framework and have provided support for the use of this model with individuals of varying levels of Racial/ethnic identity development or racial ideologies. However, more research is needed to fully understand the relationship between ethnic identity and various career constructs, using both the SCCT framework as well as other career theories that are influential in career development.
Role models can act as mentors, provide vocational information, and both directly and indirectly influence career decisions, often playing a critical role in career development (Gibson, 2004). Yet, little empirical research has examined how role models specifically influence the career development process for Racial/ethnic minorities. Karunanayake and Nauta (2004) examined differences in role models between Whites and Racial/ethnic minorities; they found no differences in the overall number of role models identified by either White or minority students or in the influences of role models on students' career development, although they did find that participants identified role models who were of the same race as their own.
Qualitative investigations have also found that role models are influential in the vocational development of LatinXs (Gomez et al., 2001) and Asian Americans (Fouad et al., 2008). In an investigation by Gomez and her colleagues, role models were identified as critical influences in the career development of LatinX women. Participants identified their mothers as role models, although several of the participants stated that they lacked LatinX professional role models and thus sought role models across professions, ethnicity, race, gender, and age. Fouad and her colleagues also found that role models emerged as an influential contextual influence for Asian Americans' career development. Participants identified models who contributed to their community and reported receiving emotional support from their models. Additionally, family members were most commonly identified as role models for the participants.
Experiences of discrimination can have a lasting impact on the career decisions that individuals from Racial/ethnic minority backgrounds make, which may be evidenced in the occupational segregation found in the U.S. labor force. Occupational segregation and differential rates of unemployment between Racial/ethnic groups may, in part, be due to restrictions of career and work choices based on bias and prejudice in the hiring process; individuals from Racial/ethnic minority backgrounds may experience discrimination that restricts their opportunities for employment. Anticipated discrimination may further restrict vocational choices; for example, individuals may not choose to enter certain types of careers based on fears that they will be discriminated against because of their race/ethnicity or other individual difference factors (e.g., gender, sexual orientation).
Minimal research has been conducted to investigate the role of discrimination empirically. An important investigation by Chung and Harmon (1999) found that ethnic minorities perceived more discrimination in the workplace than did their White counterparts. In a study on urban students' constructions about school, work, race, and ethnicity, Blustein et al. (2010) demonstrated that half of their participants had incorporated perceptions of racism into their career construction. McWhirter et al. (2018) found that Latinx students who reported greater frequency of discrimination experiences and greater barriers were more likely to consider dropping out of school. Similarly, Bonifacio et al. (2018) found that higher endorsement of recent microaggression experiences predicted lower positive outcome expectations, lower career decision‐self‐efficacy, and greater anticipated future barriers.
Conkel‐Ziebell, Gushue, and Turner (2019) examined the effects of anticipated racial and gender discrimination on career development for urban youth of color and found different pathways for girls and boys. For girls, anticipating a future racially hostile workplace climate negatively predicted outcome expectations which, in turn, predicted (less ambitious) career goals. For boys, anticipating a future hostile workplace climate negatively predicted career decision self‐efficacy, which also predicted career lower goals. Findings also indicated that career decision‐making self‐efficacy mediated the effects of racial discrimination on vocational outcome expectations for boys. As a whole, the findings from these studies suggest that experiencing or anticipating discrimination in education and workplace contexts can be related to negative educational and career‐related outcomes, such as reduced career goals.
Perceived barriers (in addition to discrimination) and supports have been identified as important factors in understanding how individuals from diverse backgrounds construct their vocational identity (Lent et al., 1994, 2000). Gender and ethnic differences in career and educational barriers have been well‐documented in the vocational psychology literature. For example, Luzzo and McWhirter (2001) found that ethnic minority college students perceived more educational and career barriers than European American students; the ethnic minority students also perceived themselves to have lower efficacy to cope with their perceived barriers. Students' perceptions of barriers and supports can play a role in their academic and career development. A longitudinal study by Garriott and Flores (2013) found that Mexican American high school students' perceptions of future barriers predicted future educational goals and GPA; greater perceived future barriers predicted lower educational goals and GPA one year later. A recent meta‐analysis conducted by Brown et al. (2018) examined the relationship between supports and barriers with various academic and career outcomes in 249 published articles. Their findings indicated that race/ethnicity did not moderate the relationship between perceived barriers and GPA, self‐efficacy, and outcome expectation. However, race/ethnicity was a significant moderator between perceived supports and school engagement and GPA. Specifically, the relationship between supports and school engagement was lower for Latinx and African American students when compared to White students. African American students also had a smaller relationship between social support and GPA than White and Latinx samples. These findings suggest that African American and Latinx students' school engagement may be less responsive to social supports than White students. Discrimination, as a barrier, was also found to be negatively related to school persistence for all Racial/ethnic groups. It is important to note that the Racial/ethnic minority sample size was small, resulting in a limited number of tests examining relationships between barriers, supports, and academic and career outcomes. More research is needed to fully understand the relationships between various types of supports with educational and career outcomes.
Coupled with the qualitative investigations of Racial/ethnic minority women described earlier (e.g., Gomez et al., 2001; Pearson & Bieschke, 2001), the research reviewed here suggests that supports can be a very positive influence for students. As a whole, studies examining barriers and supports suggest that high school and college students of color may perceive greater educational and career barriers than their White counterparts. However, supports, particularly relational supports, have been found to have a protective influence for students. More research is also needed on how institutional supports can help students of color. For example, Holloway‐Friesen (2018) found that acculturation and a welcoming college environment were related to lower perceived barriers among Latinx students. More research is needed on ways institutions can create supportive environments with fewer barriers.
It is important to understand the career aspirations and expectations of individuals from minority Racial/ethnic backgrounds. Career aspirations represent vocational preferences or career possibilities if ideal conditions are present, whereas career expectations can be thought of as career pursuits that are realistic and accessible (Metz, Fouad, & Ihle‐Helledy, 2009). Fouad and Byars‐Winston (2005) conducted a meta‐analysis of 16 studies and did not find significant differences in career aspirations based on Racial/ethnic identity. However, race/ethnicity was related to perceptions of barriers and opportunities; ethnic minorities perceived fewer opportunities and greater barriers than White Americans. These findings suggest that career aspirations may not be related to ethnic background, but the perception of barriers and opportunities to achieve those aspirations is related to ethnic background.
Metz et al. (2009) examined discrepancies between occupational aspirations and expectations in over 600 diverse college students and found ethnic differences in the students' aspirations but not in their expectations. The career aspirations and expectations of minority students were more congruent than those of White students; however, career barriers, self‐efficacy, and differential status predicted discrepancies between aspirations and expectations for ethnic minority students, but not for White students. Howard et al. (2011) examined the relationship between gender, socioeconomic status (SES), race/ethnicity, and career aspirations in more than 22,000 eighth‐ and tenth‐grade students and found that Native American students reported lower aspirations than students from other racial–ethnic groups, yet these differences were moderated by gender and social class. Native American male students reported aspirations lower than other males, and Native American and Asian/Pacific Islander students from low‐SES backgrounds had lower aspirations than students who were not from low‐SES backgrounds.
Two studies examined factors related to career aspirations for African American college students. Tovar‐Murray, Jenifer, Andrusyk, D'Angelo, and King (2012) found that ethnic identity moderated the relationship between racism‐related stress and career aspirations for 163 students, in a somewhat surprising, but important way. As one would expect, a negative relationship was found between racism‐related stress and career aspirations among those with weaker ethnic identities (i.e., higher levels of stress were related to lower aspirations). However, the direction of the relationship reversed to a positive one among those with more robust ethnic identities (i.e., higher levels of stress were associated with higher aspirations). The authors concluded that ethnic identity served as a buffer for the negative effect of racism‐related stress on career aspirations. However, it appeared to more than buffer this negative effect, but actually may have reversed it. Brown and Segrist (2016) examined the effect of internalized racism on career aspirations for 315 African American adults, finding that those who devalued an African worldview had lower career aspirations, but that there was not a relationship between career aspirations and other aspects of internalized racism (such as internalization of negative stereotypes, alteration of physical appearance, or biased representation of history). As a whole, these studies suggest that experiences‐associated racism may indeed affect career aspirations and expectations in a negative way, but that ethnic identity might serve as an important buffer against the aspiration‐limiting effects of race‐related events. More research is needed to understand nuances within Racial/ethnic groups.
Empirical investigations have found that cultural influences are indeed related to the vocational development of Racial/ethnic minorities. Yet, much of this research is preliminary in nature, and we are just beginning the process of fully understanding how culture affects career development and the meaning that Racial/ethnic minorities construct of their work. In general, vocational researchers have not fully examined cultural factors with specific Racial/ethnic populations or subpopulations; neither have they examined the complex ways in which these factors interface with one another. As a result, the field has a very limited understanding of how the career development process may be affected by one's cultural background. Further, much of the research in this section has been conducted with college student samples. Simply attending college is a privilege that many individuals do not have; thus, the findings of these studies may not be generalizable beyond a relatively privileged portion of the Racial/ethnic minority population in the United States.
So how should career counselors incorporate this information into their practice? How can career counselors be culturally competent when working with Racial/ethnic minority clients? We have several suggestions and recommendations for career counselors to consider, including developing foundational knowledge of the cultural values and history of different Racial/ethnic groups in the United States. In this section, we briefly review models of career counseling that explicitly incorporate a consideration of culture, offer our recommendations regarding counselors' metacognitions when they work with any client who is culturally different from themselves, and, finally, consider counseling implications related to the specific cultural factors discussed earlier.
Several models have been developed within the past two decades to help counselors integrate and infuse culture into career counseling. They complement each other, each providing some helpful detail on part of the process. Leung's (1995) model concentrates on career interventions. He argues that all career interventions (at the systemic, group, or individual level) need to include a focus on educational outcomes, as well as on career choices, to help buttress clients against oppression and discrimination in educational preparation as well as in choice of career. The culturally appropriate career counseling model of Fouad and Bingham (1995) emphasizes the effect of Racial/ethnic identity on the identification of career issues and the influences of the dominant culture on career processes and decisions. The most recent model is the cultural formation approach (CFA; Leong, Hardin, & Gupta, 2011). Building on the integrative‐sequential conceptual framework for career counseling of Leong and Hartung (1997), the CFA identifies five dimensions: (a) cultural identity, (b) cultural conception of career problems, (c) self in cultural context, (d) cultural dynamics in the therapeutic relationship, and (e) overall cultural assessment. The application of the CFA to various Racial/ethnic groups was articulated in a series of articles in a special issue of the Journal of Career Development (June 2010).
Taking various elements from these models, career counselors are encouraged to consider how culture influences the development of the self, how culture shapes the view of career concerns as a problem, and how culture helps to shape the goals that clients have for counseling. The dominant U.S. culture fosters a sense of self as an independent individual who makes autonomous decisions about his or her life. Other cultures foster a sense of self as someone who is interdependent with others (such as family or clan members), with individuals being expected to achieve group goals, such as pursuing a particular occupational goal to bring honor to the family. Clearly, a client's sense of self as pursuing individual goals versus the goals of his or her family will influence the career counseling process and the career counseling relationship. Counselors need to understand their own cultural sense of self to ensure that they do not impose their values on their clients. But counselors also need to be prepared to help clients understand when their own sense of self is in flux. As the studies on acculturation point out, many clients navigate two worlds, those of their parents' culture as well as the U.S. dominant culture, with potentially conflicting messages about what is the appropriate path to take as an independent adult. Sometimes clients are confused about which set of expectations to follow: their parents' expectations to adhere to group goals or the larger society's expectations to develop independence. Career choices are part of those expectations, and career counselors can often play an important role in helping clients discover solutions to this dilemma. Counselors can help by assessing the degree to which family conflict may be contributing to career decision‐making concerns and can also help clients negotiate intergenerational family conflict that may arise due to acculturation differences.
Arguing that culturally competent career counseling needs to be an active process that involves career counselors' constant development of insight and monitoring, Byars‐Winston and Fouad (2006) proposed a set of metacognitive skills for career counseling. They focused on three processes: developing a plan of action, implementing the plan and self‐monitoring, and evaluating the plan. In developing the plan, career counselors need to consider their own cultural identity, their knowledge of the client's Racial/ethnic background and identity (or identities), and identify what they do not know about the client's background. Their plan needs to be flexible enough to be readjusted as they learn more about the client. Counselors consider their goals for the client and reflect on the cultural values related to those goals. For example, is the goal focused on achievement, and does this match the client's values? As they plan strategies and interventions, career counselors consider how the strategies were chosen and which strategies might be more appropriate for the client's concerns.
The second process is implementing the plan and developing mechanisms to self‐monitor. This process involves actively monitoring what information they are paying attention to and how that may be related to their own (i.e., the counselor's) cultural values. Self‐monitoring also includes understanding when some issues or concerns are not addressed because of the counselors' discomfort. Finally, self‐monitoring includes being open to information that is not consistent with the cultural assumptions made about the client and that may, therefore, call for modification of the counseling plan.
The final process is evaluating, that is, bringing into conscious thought the question of how effective the counselor has been with interventions. Asking “how effective have I been?” is part of this process, but career counselors are also encouraged to consider what data they will use to assess this. Were the client's goals for counseling met? Did these change over time and, if so, how might that be related to cultural values and the cultural fit of the interventions? How did the career counselor feel at various stages of career counseling?
As we noted, several cultural factors have been studied in relation to Racial/ethnic minority group individuals. It is critical for career counselors to understand the complex and dynamic ways in which cultural variables related to race and ethnicity affect many aspects of career decision‐making. We have several specific recommendations based on our review of the research:
It is critical to understand that all clients belong to one or more cultural groups, that they may adopt (or discount) the cultural values of their groups, and that the cultural values of their different group identities may sometimes conflict. This is true for individuals who identify as European American as well as for members of Racial/ethnic minority groups. We argue that culturally competent career counseling is good for all clients because it brings their culture into the center of counseling. However, it is also true that career counselors need to understand how Racial/ethnic background may influence their clients.
We have discussed research that has investigated various aspects of the major career theories. We agree with Young et al. (2007) that, ideally, career theories are best developed using an emic approach, from within the cultural framework of Racial/ethnic groups. Only then will we fully understand the cultural values that may be influencing work‐related decisions. However, the research on how Racial/ethnic groups differ on constructs in the major career theories has shown, for the most part, that culturally competent career counseling may be informed by any of the theories, as long as career counselors explicitly use metacognitive skills to culturally adapt the theory. It is clear that cultural values, barriers and supports, acculturation, and perceptions of discrimination must be incorporated, no matter which theoretical perspective a counselor uses. Our overall conclusion is that, at this point, rigorous research is still needed to more fully explain how career choices and adjustment are influenced by Racial/ethnic background.