Children’s Conceptions of Career Choice and Attainment: Model Development

Abstract

This article describes a model of children’s conceptions of two key career development processes: career choice and career attainment. The model of children’s understanding of career choice and attainment was constructed with developmental research and theory into children’s understanding of allied phenomena such as their understanding of illness, violence, and ethnicity. The proposed model articulates aspects of career development during childhood that have not been addressed in extant vocational models. Six levels of development of vocational reasoning are described, ranging from magical, association-based thinking to reasoning that involves the dynamic interaction of influences at the individual, relational, and systemic levels.