Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- PART I CURRENT APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF CAREERS
- Introduction to Part I
- 1 Generating new directions in career theory: the case for a transdisciplinary approach
- 2 Trait-factor theories: traditional cornerstone of career theory
- 3 Careers, identities, and institutions: the legacy of the Chicago School of Sociology
- 4 The utility of adult development theory in understanding career adjustment process
- 5 Developmental views of careers in organizations
- 6 Exploring women's development: implications for career theory, practice, and research
- 7 The influence of race on career dynamics: theory and research on minority career experiences
- 8 Asynchronism in dual-career and family linkages
- 9 Transitions, work histories, and careers
- 10 Career system profiles and strategic staffing
- PART II NEW IDEAS FOR THE STUDY OF CAREERS
- PART III FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAREER THEORY
- Name index
- Subject index
9 - Transitions, work histories, and careers
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- PART I CURRENT APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF CAREERS
- Introduction to Part I
- 1 Generating new directions in career theory: the case for a transdisciplinary approach
- 2 Trait-factor theories: traditional cornerstone of career theory
- 3 Careers, identities, and institutions: the legacy of the Chicago School of Sociology
- 4 The utility of adult development theory in understanding career adjustment process
- 5 Developmental views of careers in organizations
- 6 Exploring women's development: implications for career theory, practice, and research
- 7 The influence of race on career dynamics: theory and research on minority career experiences
- 8 Asynchronism in dual-career and family linkages
- 9 Transitions, work histories, and careers
- 10 Career system profiles and strategic staffing
- PART II NEW IDEAS FOR THE STUDY OF CAREERS
- PART III FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAREER THEORY
- Name index
- Subject index
Summary
TRANSITIONS AND THE CONCEPT OF CAREERS
As social scientists we often run into difficulties because of the language we use. Try as we might, we have generally failed to create a lexicon of technical usage that is separate and distinct from the discourse of everyday life and thereby achieves the scientific virtues of precision, neutrality and malleability. The language of mathematics has provided a convenient but overused refuge, but still the social scientist must come out from under its cover to speak to the world about what he or she knows.
Here's where the problems start, and often the cause is that the implicit metaphors lurking in the terms we use confound our attempts to operationalize, define and fix their limits. Concepts are still inclined to spread beyond the boundaries we set for them; other meanings creep back in, like stowaways re-embarking after a craft has been inspected and cleared for departure. The notion of “career” is a case in point. The metaphor of journey can be detected at its center and is traceable to its complex etymological origins. The use of the term career to mean “course” is a fairly recent linguistic re-adoption from several Romance languages, where its semantic root denoted a “carriage way” or road (Onions, 1966).
Thinking of careers as journeys is clearly both apt and attractive for many people. Journeys have beginnings and ends, with purposes connecting them – a reassuring image. But the dangers of this epic metaphor are twofold: It encourages reification of the integrity of careers and it inclines one to view the journey as an attribute of the traveler rather than the compulsive shape of the terrain.
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- Handbook of Career Theory , pp. 181 - 201Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989
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