Integrating Person- and Function-Centered Approaches in Career Development Theory and Research

Abstract

In the 1980s, life-span developmental psychology and developmental contextualism were first applied to career development in an effort to update the developmental frameworks most commonly used in vocational psychology. Because the occupational world today is far more dynamic and rapidly changing than even 20 years ago, it stands to reason that changes in the world of occupations need to be matched by theoretical and conceptual advances. One significant advance would be to integrate a person-centered, life course approach exemplified by the work of Bühler, with a function-based, life-span developmental approach that examines certain behaviors or functions (such as career-related behaviors) (Baltes & Goulet, 1970). Prominent researchers in the life course tradition (e.g., Elder) and in the life-span tradition (e.g., Baltes) have, however, pursued separate directions in both theory and research. The present paper will propose that career development theory and research could be a natural area in which the predominantly function-centered approach of life-span psychology can be integrated with the person-centered methodologies and theoretical perspectives exemplified by the life course approach in sociology.