Transcript File

Gottfredson’s Circumscription,
Compromise, & Self Creation
Christopher Belser, M.Ed., NCC
University of Central Florida
To get us started…
Think back to last week when Coralis asked
you about a job you wanted when you were
a child…
What made you change your mind about
that one?
Meet Linda Gottfredson
 Worked in Peace Corps in Malaysia
 Taught in high needs schools in Oakland, CA.
 Worked for the Human Relations Commission
in Oakland, CA researching media bias and
black underrepresentation in journalism
 Ph.D. in Sociology
 Her theory emerged in the early 1980s
Her ideas were shaped by the social issues she
witnessed and experienced.
from an interview with Gottfredson:
“Beginning with my dissertation, I worked
toward integrating the sociological and
psychological approaches to career
development. My particular aim was to
understand better why individuals of different
races, sexes, and social classes tend to end up
in different kinds of jobs—and hence different
places within the social order…”
“The two spoke different languages… Sociologists
classified occupations vertically, by socioeconomic
status, while vocational psychologists ordered them
horizontally, by field of work or vocational interests.
So where one emphasized invidious (unjust)
distinctions, the other avoided them. Psychologists
studied how people choose occupations; sociologists,
how society erects barriers to free choice.”
--Linda Gottfredson (2007)
Circumscription
Orientation to Size & Power
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlHA86Y_BaM
A different kind of career theory
Orientation to sex roles
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmgV3OFn0aE
A different kind of career theory
Orientation to social valuation
 Everybody Loves Raymond clip (1 min)
 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2mueg4
A different kind of career theory
Orientation to Internal, Unique Self
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1F9-NKqDDk
A different kind of career theory
Key concepts
 Self-concept: a
multifaceted view of one’s
self; includes personal
aspects such as appearance,
gender, values, abilities,
personality, etc.
Key concepts
 Images of occupations:
stereotypes of
occupations related to
who can work in an
occupation and what
kind of work they do
Key Concepts
 Occupational Preferences: compatibility
between images of occupations and one’s
preferred level of effort
 Perceived Accessibility of an Occupation:
obstacles or opportunities that affect chances of
getting into an occupation
 Occupational Alternatives: Product of
compatibility and accessibility
Cognitive Maps of Occupations
Heart surgeon
Federal Judge
Psychiatrist
Tolerable Effort Boundary
Social Space
(Zone of Acceptable
Alternatives)
HS teacher
Kindergarten
teacher
Real Estate Agent
Receptionist
Construction Worker
Activity! Let’s make a map!
 Refer to the back of your
handout
 Find the 5 listed careers and
complete the list.
 Plot the 10 careers on the
map where they would fit
within the perceived level of
prestige (y axis) and
perceived sex type (x axis)
Heart surgeon
Kindergarten
teacher
Reflection on activity
 Why are certain careers placed where they are?
 Who or what may have influenced these ratings?
 How do your ratings compare to a classmate’s?
Key concepts
Circumscription:
 Progressive
elimination of
one’s least
favored options;
occurs within
the four stages
Key concepts
 Compromise: adjusting preferred career options
based on external or environmental constraints on
career choice (settling)
 If discrepancy between preference and reality is small,
individuals won’t compromise on area of interest
 If discrepancy is moderate, individuals are more likely to
compromise on sex type than prestige.
 If the discrepancy is large, individuals are more likely to
sacrifice area of interest than prestige or sex type
Criticisms
 Limited mostly to children &
adolescents
 Not much for adult
development
 More conceptual, without
concrete activities or
interventions
 Only plots careers based on
gender and SES
 The “G factor”
The “g factor”
 Gottfredson was and is interested in the impact of
intelligence on abilities and career choice
 Briefly researched race and general intelligence
(biologically-based)
 Has since changed her views on these specific studies
 Currently investigating how genetic intelligence
factors (nature) and environment (nurture) interact
to impact ability and career choice
Praise and Implications
 Moves the conversation about careers beyond trait-and-factor
 Provides counselors with a framework for understanding
sociological factors for why an individual may experience career
distress or indecision
 The Cognitive Map of Careers can help counselors and clients
understand how they perceive certain careers; this opens the
conversation to why those perceptions are what they are.
 Helps counselors factor reality into the conversation about careers
 Informs school counselors of the necessity to expose students to
non-traditional careers