Career development in adolescence as a family project.

Abstract

This study conceptualizes and investigates career-relevant parent-child conversations and other actions over time as a family project. Dyads composed of a parent and an adolescent from 20 families participated in a videotaped career-related conversation to determine a family career-development project that was subsequently monitored for a 6-month period and followed up with a 2nd videotaped conversation. On the basis of a systematic qualitative analysis, several dimensions were identified as facilitating the family career-development project, including joint goals, communication, goals-steps congruence, and individuation. These family career-development projects were organized as part of broader relationship, identity, parenting, and cultural projects that also played a decisive role in the success of the family career-development projects themselves.