Career Exploration for Children and Adolescents

Career theory characterises early to middle childhood as the period when children physically and psychologically explore the outer world and organise this information into increasingly complex categories and associations. The late childhood and early adolescent period has been theoretically distinguished from the earlier periods within the career literature by the use of a dynamic form of exploration that involves a transaction between aspects of a person’s inner and outer world in the pursuit of career goals of varying degrees of specificity. However, the broader literature on human exploration suggests that exploration as a complex interplay between the inner and outer world occurs during the childhood period. Regardless of the timing of the process, the developmental course of diversive and specific career exploration is predicted to yield a set of career pathways that are consistent with a child’s emerging interests, needs, aspirations, and values on the one hand and his/her environmental opportunities and social pressures (e.g., parental wishes and expectations) on the other. Career exploration is, therefore, a critical aspect of child and adolescent exploration. This chapter will first explore the theoretical and empirical literature on career exploration in children and adolescents. Acknowledging the importance of the outer world, or the developmental context, in career exploration, the chapter will then investigate the major contexts for formal (or intentional) career exploration for children and adolescents, namely the family and the school, and critique the programs and interventions utilised to facilitate the career exploration process for children and adolescents