Parents and Adolescents Co-Constructing Career

In: Career Development in Childhood and Adolescence
Authors:
Richard A. Young University of British Columbia Canada

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Ladislav Valach University of Zurich Switzerland

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Sheila K. Marshall University of British Columbia Canada

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Parents and adolescents co-construct career through joint projects that focus on the adolescent’s future. This co-construction of career is conceptualized within an action theoretical framework which examines the joint, goal-directed actions that parents and adolescents take together. This framework allows the process of career construction to be unpacked. Based on over 10 years of research with various family groups, using the action-project method, the family career-development project is discussed as having meaning for parents and adolescents, and as being goal-directed and complex. These projects are interwoven with other projects in the parents’ and adolescents’ lives, including social inclusion, culture, and the parentadolescent relationship. Specific successive steps where there is positive feedback and the experience of success characterized projects that worked well. The projects are energized by emotion. Specific behaviours, including the agentic use of language, and structural resources, such as time availability, influence how the projects are carried out. This understanding has implications for practice by directing the focus of attention on joint projects in which the adolescent is engaged, particularly with their parents.

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