Career Development Theory

Exploring Career Development Theories: A collective review in the context of South Africa
This collective review will aim to explore the appropriateness of Western approaches with regard to career psychology within the South African Context. Two ‘popular’ westernised theories – Donald Supers and John Hollands- that are commonly used to theorise career development and vocational choice (even) among young Black South Africans will be investigated in the review. Their inefficiencies and inappropriateness within a multicultural setting (such as SA) will be presented. An evidence base for a greater need for indigenous career development approaches to be implemented will be reviewed. This review will be conducted in the form of a collective review.

These theories have however been developed in and for a ‘Westernised’ setting and can’t fully encapsulate the South African population. These perspectives, which form the cornerstone of a career psychology world view which implicitly values autonomy and imperialism, which many black South Africans weren’t even awarded the opportunity to have. As a result, central assumptions of career development theories have been violated (Osipow & Little John, 1995), and thus becomes one of the greatest arguments toward an indigenous approach to be adopted when analysing career development in SA.
This proposed collective review reviews the literature on career development theories to highlight the in appropriateness of western theories, particularly as they relate to the local, South African context. An evidence base to consider the use of indigenous approaches to career development theories, is

Career development according to Supers theory can be seen as a progression which develops steadily throughout a person’s life (Zunker, 2006). Super’s 5 life and career development stages are Growth (birth – 14 years), Exploration (15 – 24 years), Establishment (25 – 44 years), Maintenance (45 – 64 years), and Decline (65 years and over), where each stage contains different developmental tasks.
Langley (1999) noted considerable adjustments that would need to be made for African perspective to be accommodated – for example, socioeconomic, socio-political and familial factors. She also called for the consideration of a holistic use of the construct of career adaptability, life themes and career story telling (Langley, 1999 as cited in Stead & Watson, 2006). This being said Researchers such as Swanson and Fouad (1999) and Marques (2001) support supers constructs such as those relating to self-concept and career development and remains relevant for the new generation and diverse cultures and countries (Savickas, 2001). Many new comments regarding Supers theory focuses on the need for adaption to fit contexts (Stead & Watson,