Linda Gottfredson (1981) outlined a theory of career development and career choice that she describes as one of the “circumscription and committed”. She perceives that career choice has a developmental trajectory. This means that she believes that career choice evolves within an individual as she grows in her family and society … but focuses her attention on the limiting effects of socialization in determining career options.

While he believes that career choice is self-expressive, he focuses more precisely on the origins and limits of an individual’s self-concept, their image of who they are, both privately and internally … and externally in relation to others and proposes that career selection is largely based on social identity. She feels that social identity is organized in three areas: Masculinity / femininity, personal interest and prestige.

His theory emphasizes the processes of socialization and cultural learning that begin very early in life to create a person’s ideas about who has what kind of power in the world and what work men and women usually do. It points out that a very young child will adopt an attitude of respect or dismissal from categories of people and jobs, depending on what adults model in their life, so that cultural socialization determines what children accept as appropriate behavior from sexual type and which professions are considered to have prestige.

Personal interests are important, but are encouraged or discouraged within culturally tolerable limits on the basis of the first two categories. Beyond this, he suggests, the reality tests and available opportunities suggest what career possibilities are considered accessible.

Many people enter the workforce without realizing the degree to which they have been driven by these historical and social influences. As a result, when they hit a plateau or dead end in their career, they may suddenly feel adrift and wonder how they got there. They may suddenly doubt the wisdom or appropriateness of their career choice and there may be good reasons why the original path now feels too restrictive or, as Gottfredson puts it, “circumscribed”.

It may well be that your life circumstances have expanded your field of vision beyond the limitations that were placed on you when you entered the workforce. They may now discover that they live in a world that has moved towards broader and more inclusive definitions of appropriate sex work. In the case of other individuals, it may happen that having achieved the sought “prestige”, the individuals are still dissatisfied on a deeper level.

It is at these points that professional development and personal development can coincide and, faced with a broader field of options and a more developed skill set, a new challenge or a new direction can be chosen to healthily redirect the next part. From his job. life.

Reference:

Gottfredson, Linda S. (1981). Circumscription and commitment: a theory of the development of occupational aspirations. Journal of Counseling Psychology. Flight. 28 (6), pp. 545-579.