Blog 3

To start this week’s blog I would like to say a couple of things before I start discussing the chapter. The first thing is that I am not quite sure on how I am supposed to be writing these. I know that is it free form styled, and that there are no prompts. I just am curious if I am supposed to write as if the blogs are miniature essays or if I should just put down what pops into my head. My guess is that I should write in complete sentences and get my thoughts across on this platform. The second thing is that my opinions were changed on the book, but just slightly. This chapter didn’t start off as a history lesson, but jumped right into the first theory. Needless to say I am starting to enjoy the book a little more.

There were a couple of thoughts I had while I was reading this chapter. The first theory discussed was by a man named Donald Super, and it had a couple of interesting points. On page 72, Brown says that “Super (1984, 1990) emphasizes that self-concept should be defined broadly to include not only an internalized personal view of self but also the individual’s view of the situations or conditions in which he or she exists” (2016).  What I took out of it was that not only does career development encompass the person, but also their views on the world around them. It makes sense, in a way, that people are influenced by not only their own morals and ethics but also the part of their environment.

I also enjoyed that Super learned that his theory would work for other races and for women. His original ideas were focused on white males, and those are who his subjects were. He ended up changing his views on gender-specific roles and careers. I thought that it was neat, how he knew the world around him wasn’t just white males and adapted his theories to fit females and those of different races.

Another thought I had while reading this chapter was that the idea of C-DAC and Gottfredson’s theory would go well together. C-DAC is a compilation of Super’s work along with a few others he had worked with, split up into four sections. The third section is a career development inventory, and the reason I think Gottfredson’s theory works well with this model is because of this section. Creating an inventory, in my mind, is basically going through the circumscription and the compromises of Gottfredson’s theory.
One other thing I found interesting was the chart on page 81. It was a list of 81 different occupations rated on the social status of each job. I know that the rating system was done in China, but I was wondering if there would be much of a difference if done in modern times America. I don’t think that the results would be drastically different than in 1992, but it is a possibility that I could be completely wrong.

Brown, D. (2016). Career information, career counseling, and career development (11th Ed.). New York: Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN 978-0-13-391777-2.