Multicultural Vocational Research: Critique and Call to Action

Vocational psychology has long argued that career opportunities differ for individuals from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds. Yet, despite decades of research, are we closer to understanding the role of race and ethnicity in career development? The purpose of this article is to systematically review and critique research on racial/ethnic minorities in vocational psychology since critique of the research, with a particular emphasis on whether research with racial/ethnic minorities is theory-based, incorporates an intersectional framework, focuses on aspects of identity, and examines environmental and societal aspects of career development. We use our conclusions from that review to make a set of recommendations that we hope will stimulate future research.

Career Assessment With Culturally Different Clients: Proposing an Integrative-Sequential Conceptual Framework for Cross-Cultural Career Counseling Research and Practice

In response to the need for theoretical models to guide counseling and conceptualize career assessment with culturally different clients, the authors propose an integrative-sequential conceptual model for cross-cultural career counseling research and practice. This framework consists of five stages: (a) emergence of career and vocational problems, (b) help-seeking and career services utilization, (c) evaluation of career and vocational problems, (d) career interventions, and (e) outcomes of career interventions. This model may be useful in guiding both career psychology research and career assessment and interventions with culturally different clients.

Career Assessment With African-American Clients

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of issues related to using career assessment with African-American clients. We first discuss the philosophy and practice of career assessment, and present an expanded view of assessment. In the second section, we outline general issues in career counseling with African-American clients, including topics to explore in career counseling and the role of the counselor's and client's racial identity attitudes. The third section consists of specific issues in using career assessment with African-American clients, such as how race and racial identity attitudes might influence the process of assessment, and psychometric and theoretical issues in using career assessment instruments. The final section offers some directions for future research and practice regarding career assessment.

Understanding the Complexity of Clients’ Lives

This article discusses training issues related to the new paradigm proposed by Robitschek and DeBell, in which vocational topics in counseling psychology are viewed as primary issues and contextual factors in people’s lives. Specifically, the new paradigm is conceptualized as a truly integrative career-personal perspective in the training of delivery of counseling services. Existing literature regarding the overlap of career and social-emotional counseling is reviewed in the context of the new integrative paradigm, with particular focus on evidence related to foundational assumptions underlying the paradigm. Suggestions for how to implement a truly integrative career-personal perspective throughout graduate training are offered.

Integrating cultural competency in rehabilitation curricula in the new millennium: keeping it simple

Pre-service rehabilitation education programmes in the United States still prepare future professionals in cultural competency primarily through one required course in multicultural counselling, though there is an expectation that such content will be woven into all graduate rehabilitation coursework. These authors believe that there is still a need in these dawning years of the 21st century to offer more guidance to rehabilitation educators on how to integrate cultural competency into each course at the graduate level. This discussion reviews the literature to date on cultural competency within rehabilitation education in the United States, then concludes by proposing a four-strategy framework for use by rehabilitation educators that is simple, comprehensive, multi-dimensional (i.e., it addresses faculty awareness, student coursework, the student clinical experience and lifelong learning for the student after exiting the pre-service educational programme), and that offers clear guiding parameters without being overly prescriptive.

Integrating Practice Guidelines Into Professional Training

The authors present the findings of a special task group (STG) organized to explore effective training strategies for the practice guidelines focused on diverse populations. They provide a brief literature review and summarize survey data from academic training directors regarding current use of practice guidelines. The authors then describe the Integrative Training Model (ITM), developed by the STG, as a framework for students and professionals to incorporate the complex array of information contained in each set of guidelines. Unique challenges associated with incorporating the ITM are described, as well as pedagogical considerations for both students and current professionals. The authors believe the ITM may help students and professionals increase their diversity competence by developing a more holistic understanding of the various dimensions and social group experiences that affect their clients and themselves.

Cross-Cultural Career Counselling

When conducting a search of the literature concerning the career decision-making process undertaken by Vietnamese Australian tertiary students, various papers concerning career counselling with ethnic minorities and cross-cultural career counselling have been consulted. This paper presents the main points in the literature because of their relevance to the Australian context. The knowledge and skills required of career counsellors who work with such clients, as described in these texts, highlight the challenges facing these professionals.