A philosophical consideration of qualitative career assessment

This chapter entails a consideration of the philosophical dimensions of career assessment as an act of social construction. As a philosophical chapter that necessarily renders our own values in this text, we declare our endorsement of social constructionism (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Gergen & Davis, 1985) and the Systems Theory Framework of career development (STF; Patton & McMahon, 2014). Indeed, we present this statement quite deliberately for we believe it is incumbent upon all scholars and practitioners who engage in a process of a philosophical consideration to metaphorically wear their epistemic and professional values on their sleeves to ensure transparency and understanding (Prilleltensky & Stead, 2013). Thus, the chapter begins with a selection of historical moments in the evolution of the field of career development. We present a caution that career assessment—qualitative and quantitative—is itself an historical, culturally constructed entity that manifests the power of career practitioners afforded them by clients’ unwitting collusion with the discourse of career. We then present a conceptualisation of narrative through the lens of social constructionism