For more information
Call 1-800-351-0222
Call 1-800-351-0222
CAREER COUNSELORS.
Term Paper ID:30400
Essay Subject:
Discusses challenges facing counselors.... More...
9 Pages / 2025 Words
10 sources, 19 Citations,
APA Format
$36.00
More Papers on This Topic
Paper Abstract:
Discusses challenges facing counselors. Their vital role. Human elements vs. testing. Combining tests with client attitudes and statements. Characteristics a good career counselor needs. Role of cultural perspectives in career planning and development. Multicultural factors in today's American society. Cultural pluralism and counseling. Use of multicultural model in counseling strategy.
Paper Introduction:
If there is any single issue that must be of constant concern to a career counselor, it is that human beings as a group are going to be difficult to fit neatly into the pigeonholes of theory and practice. In any endeavor that involves the human element--from planning war strategy to planning a career--nothing is so certain as the fact that behavior predictions are bound to be uncertain. Were that not he case, there would be no need for the helping professions such as career counseling, psychiatry, or psychology. Were there not profound differences of personality, culture, language, social position, and so on, and were those differences not so difficult to identify, quantify, and analyze, everybody in the helping professions could just go home.
Now of course counselors and psychiatrists and nurses do not j
Text of the Paper:
The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper.
Now of course counselors and psychiatrists and nurses do not just gohome. It seems unlikely that in the modern period every person fromevery culture or linguistic tradition will be able to fit neatly intoHolland's six-factor typological scheme. New York Times, A1. References Chivers, C.J. Hopkins, C. Career counseling: Applied concepts of lifeplanning. Undoubtedly, school counselors have a vital role to play not only inmonitoring the adequacy of instruction in technical areas but also insocializing the future workforce in a context of community and cooperativeeffort. A. Lowman (1991, p. Yet all the standardized and quantified tests in the world ofcareer counseling cannot reduce even the most career-compliant of humanelements to the status of a factor of analysis. Diversity directive: Recruiters offercareer tips for Hispanics. If there is any single issue that must be of constant concern to acareer counselor, it is that human beings as a group are going to bedifficult to fit neatly into the pigeonholes of theory and practice. The NewYork Times recently reported that African American police officers at theNYPD rarely get promoted through the ranks the way their white counterpartsdo (Chivers, 2 1). But troubling implications arisefor the content of such counseling. Accordingly, the more (and earlier) career counselors can learn aboutcultures that are "other" than themselves, the more likely they are to beable to point their clients in the direction of productive and satisfyingwork experiences. Wall Street Journal B1. (1998, Fall). Measuring morality: A comparison of ethicalsystems. 424), the difficulty with anysuch theory is that it is likely to conflict at some point with real-worldexperiences, thus demonstrating how the vagaries of actual human behaviorbelie ideas about what it is supposed to be. Washington, D.C.: American PsychologicalAssociation. Upper SaddleRiver, New Jersey: Merrill/Prentice-Hall. To be sure, as Zunker notes (1997, p. Overthe last 25 years, the structure of American population has shifted towardwhat has been termed a society reflecting diversity--of race, culture,language, and so on. (2 , December 12. In anyendeavor that involves the human element--from planning war strategy toplanning a career--nothing is so certain as the fact that behaviorpredictions are bound to be uncertain. Were there not profound differences ofpersonality, culture, language, social position, and so on, and were thosedifferences not so difficult to identify, quantify, and analyze, everybodyin the helping professions could just go home. 132). As for the multicultural counseling and therapy theory that Zunkerattributes to Sue, Ivey, and Pedersen (p. But what if theclient, who may be well educated, speaks Spanish or Chinese but is notfluent in English? There is a compelling body of evidence showing that the Hispaniccommunity is the source of real-world advocacy and promotion of the careeraspirations of its cultural clientele. Swiniarski, Breitborde, and Murphy (1999, p. Educatingthe global village: Including the young child in the world. 83-4; 424). (1991). Zunker, V.G. Rookie Hispanic office holders attendboot camp. Where multiculturalism is a feature of career development, one is leftwith a sense that it will remain controversial and problematic on manyissue fronts for the foreseeable future. Porter (2 ) cites a four-dayworkshop for Hispanics elected to public office that has as its principalgoal the creation of a Latino political organization engages in advocacy ofissues important to Hispanic political constituencies. The special challengefacing would-be career counselors is a slightly ironic one. What could be moreindividuated and particularistic than that. Career counseling standards for every counselor.Occupational Outlook Quarterly, 42, 3 -35. Lowman, R.L. M., & Rotter, J. The messages could not be moremixed. Shouldthe client adapt to the new country's employment institutions or assume therole of diversity advocate where cultures and institutions collide? But it isdifficult to see how all cross-cultural issues that may become relevant inan employment-counseling situation can be captured by standardized tests inlanguage A or language B, when there is so much that standardized testsgiven to people who share a common language do not necessarily captureabout the abilities, interests, and occupational prospects of individualclients. Undoubtedly it isthe case that the issues can be addressed in meaningful ways, but careercounseling as a discipline appears to have a long way to go before itsexisting theories can account for the host of idiosyncratic issues that mayarise in a multicultural context. Though people change jobs, they have only one careerbecause they live only one life" (Mariani, 1998, p. How, ifcareer counselors who operate in the context of the dominant culture "mustlearn to accept the worldviews of others" (Zunker, 1997, p. 426), citing the multiculturalmodel, a career counselor must be alert to whether a client's culture ismainly individual, mainly group, or mainly universal in orientation, andadapt counseling strategies accordingly. Saludos Hispanos Magazine. In that regard, Zunker (1997, pp. Any career counselor's review of a battery of tests must beaccompanied by careful attention to client attitudes and statements,whether verbal or nonverbal, that may aid in assessing the real needs andobjectives of the client, both personal and professional. Zunker (1997) cites family-systems theory as relevant to career development, but his focus isprimarily on two-career households and the gender biases that inform theadoption of social roles at home and at work. And supposecareer counselors become advocates for clients from cultures that aremarginalized vis-à-vis the dominant one: Are they functioning as counselorsor political operatives? That is why, despite theplethora of standardized tests and computer models for providingappropriate career guidance that are available to career counselors, itseems advisable for the responsible counselor to leaven any interpretationof the results of standardized testing and evaluation with an attitude ofskepticism. Swiniarski, Breitborde, and Murphy (1999) forcefully argue thatin the context of emerging diversity generation in this country and thefact that this generation will be living in a global society also marked bygeopolitical, nation-state, cultural, and other categories of diversity, aswell as a diverse set of priorities and capabilities, a principal needemerging generations will have is for education and training that aresuited to the task of facilitating their ability to cope with thevicissitudes of future experience in the context of the global village. There is no shortage of real-world challenges to comfortable theoriesabout cultures that are marginalized relative to the mainstream. This does not mean that theoryshould withdraw in the face of the many imponderables but rather that thedifficulties of asserting universally valid claims about measuring this orthat trait or set of traits and career priorities are just as important toconsider as the benefits of doing so. Now part of thismix will occur perhaps in public schools but much of it in the myriadvenues of the labor market, at all levels of management and line staffing. Family Journal-Counseling & Therapy forCouples & Families, 8, 67-71. Taking account of such assessment structures as verbal reasoning maybe quite useful for making an evaluation of aptitude or capability--if bothcounselor and client have English as their first language. In the area of vocational development, such skills may beespecially crucial to the degree socioeconomic competition between andamong workplace colleagues may exist right beside the fact that theenterprise they work for will undoubtedly desire them to functioncooperatively and at a high morale level. 75) cautions that intelligencemeasurements are not the only important predictor of job aptitude orsatisfaction, and he cites research showing that "social environments canfacilitate or impede the development of critical thinking skills" (p. 155ff) as regards access tolearning technologies, language-skills development, facilities forphysically or mentally disabled students, and so on. Saludos.com, Bilingual CareerOpportunities. (1997). 77ff), which has beentransformed by patterns of immigration and enterprise development in recentdecades. Then there is the issue of the evolution of the career-counselingdiscipline in the context of multiculturalism, the real-world facts ofwhich seem to be overtaking careful theory. Similarly, although there is an Internet site(www.saludos.com) specifically devoted to promoting workplace diversity andbilingual career opportunities (and promoted in English!), and althoughsuch mainstream corporations as Charles Schwab and Oracle offer employmentopportunities for bilingual professionals at that site, the weight ofevidence in the employment culture as a whole is that the most meaningfulefforts at assisting minority individuals with career-development issueshave come more from the minority communities themselves than from theefforts of those privileged in the mainstream to integrate minorityinterests. Pacific Grove, Calif.: Brooks/Cole. Swiniarski, L. But as Evans and Rotter(2 ) point out, the extended family's stake in the breadwinner's careerchoice has been little studied in general, and in particular there has verylittle attention indeed to the career-related issues that arise amongethnic minorities. Theauthors urge active involvement and cooperation of families, teachers, andpolicy planners. Defacto cultural pluralism has not necessarily been accompanied by universal,pluralistic access to the benefits traditionally associated with the whitemiddle class. Theiranswer is to teach respectful, anti-bias social skills and values, and theimplication is that these values and skills can serve them once they enterthe labor force. Private-sector career counselors, whether operating as independentpractitioners or as part of a corporate human-resources apparatus, are alsoimplicated in facilitating optimal career decisions for a work force withdiverse backgrounds and needs. For black officers, diversity has itslimits. On one hand a governing career-developmenttheory engages in what looks to be a left-handed critique of US careertraditions, and on the other the Hispanic individual is urged to declarehis individuality. But now consider the disconnect between thatsupposedly sensible idea and the advice given prospective Hispanicemployees by diversity captains in major US corporations: never submergethe Hispanic individual's unique personality in the personality of thecorporation (Hopkins, 1997). Zunker himself notes that Hispanic families are"typically" close-knit and that family structure and values may affect thedynamics of career decisions made by individual members. Evans, K. Citing the multiple educational and political models around the world--none of which by itself answers all prospective needs and learning stylesof all children in all cultures--the text argues for inclusive,multicultural, and multimodal instructional strategies, which are meant toenable learning opportunities at a variety of socioeconomic and culture-specific levels. Porter, E. A., Breitborde, M. That seemsespecially the case where the counselor and the client view career planningand career development from vastly different cultural perspectives. To put itanother way, the American life plan, from curriculum to career development,of the global village is envisioned as responding to a range of culture-specific cues embodied in emerging populations rather than as a vehicleshaping the populations to conform to the cues of the dominant culture. (1998). 2nd ed. For example, there is wide disparity between affluent anddeprived groups and geographical areas (p. C. Clinical practice of career assessment: Interests,abilities, and personality. Throughout, the particular focus is on "multiculturalAmerica" (Swiniarski, Breitborde, & Murphy, 1999, p. 45 -1) describes certain aptitudetests that are available in Spanish and English, some that have beendeveloped for so-called culturally disadvantaged students, and others thathave been developed for those who have reading disabilities. That seems a very sensible way ofinterrogating the ethos of individualism that has historically marked USEurocentric culture. Career counseling and facilitating: Standardsfor a new century. 441) and notimpose their values on clients, will those same counselors be able toeffectively convey to those "others" the risks and rewards of failing orrefusing to adapt to the dominant facts of employment life? Awareness of this transformation is meant to inform development ofinclusive rather than Eurocentric curricula on one hand, and "childcentered and respectful of the child's family values, cultural background,and individual learning styles, needs, and challenges" (p. Hispanic, 1 , 68-9. Should the counselor advise the clientto change his ways or assert his uniqueness to advance his career? 5th ed. Mariani, M. 92) citecriticism of so-called ethno-national models of development and educationthat expose children to cultures outside their own; such criticisms focuson the potential for balkanizing rather than uniting communities. Were that not he case, there wouldbe no need for the helping professions such as career counseling,psychiatry, or psychology. (2 , January). Equally, the career counselor must approach a consultation with anattitude of humility and of appreciation of the fact that he or she may notbe able to provide the service that the client is seeking. (2 1, April 2). L., & Murphy, J. (1999). Meanwhile, a discussion of the need for career-development counseling standards declares that a career "has becomesynonymous with life. Consider for a moment just one"underlying assumption that prompted the development of MCT," thatindividualism should not dominate the mental health field, i.e., thatindividuals have to be considered in the context of their environment(Zunker, 1997, pp. Richardson, Texas: Probe Ministries International. (2 1). But because the stakes are high when people are in need of help withthe course of their lives, the willingness of helping professionals tobecome engaged with the hopes and fears of their fellow human beings mustbe matched by competence and should be matched by expertise in thediscipline if help is going to be accomplished. Multicultural familyapproaches to career counseling. Indeed, as both Zucker (1997) andLowman (1991) indicate, Holland's typology is organized around words thatcharacterize human attitudes and behavior patterns, irrespective of thecultural background that informs what the Holland system declares to be"enterprising," "realistic," or "social." What is socially desirable orrealistic in Kansas may not resonate with someone who was educated inGuatemala or who entered the US labor force as a political refugee from acountry such as Nicaragua or the People's Republic of China. Suggestions for meeting the emerging society'seducational and career needs have come not only from the career-counselingdiscipline but also from a variety of social commentators and politicalobservers. Retrieved from the World Wide Web 13 June 2 1, athttp://www.saludos.com. Lutzer, E.W. Onthe other hand, this variety of cultures will inevitably be mixing togetheras they compete for jobs or become workplace colleagues. For what a clientmay need is not career counseling, except in the most incidental sense, butrather psychotherapy, family therapy, or even a lawyer. 3 ). Thus by the time theentire population of children now being educated reaches working age, by nomeans will all children have been equally well prepared for employment. That is becausecareer counseling as a discipline has been flooded with highly specificinstruments for measuring intelligence, aptitude, interest, andcapabilities. (1997, October). 77).But such a statement passes over the abundance of barriers to meaningfulemployment that confront clients who may have intelligence that isunacknowledged and therefore untapped because of linguistic or culturalbarriers. The host of immigrants and refugees that arrived in the US in the lastquarter of the century has transformed US ethnic and cultural makeup.
If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again:
or
We can write a Custom Essay just for you.
Browse Essays by Subject