Special Section:Career Development in ChildhoodTntroHnction to the Special SectionChildren's Career Development:Status Quo and Future Directions

Mary McMahon, Guest EditorMark Watson, Guest Editor

For decades, writers bave criticized tbe limited researcb focus (e.g.,Borow, 1964) and lack of tbeoretical depth (e.g., Vbndracek & Kircb-ner, 1974) on cbildren's career development. Indeed, Borow urgedvocational researcb and tbeory to focus increasing attention on theformative years of childhood. Little has changed over the ensuing de-cades, even though career development is now recognized as a life spanprocess. For example, a decade ago, Gysbers (1996) outlined severalmajor challenges facing career counselors, educators, and researchersin tbe field of children's career development. Among these challengeswere the need for a comprehensive, cohesive approach to career theory,practice, and research and the need for action rather than reaction inthe career literature.

These challenges remain largely unmet, and Schultheiss, Palma, andManzi (2005) have more recently called for a greater integration oftheory, practice, and research in children's career development literature.This call has been endorsed by Watson and McMahon (2007), whorecommended strengthening the provision of intentional, careerdevelopment learning experiences for children. This consistent schismbetween career theory, practice, and research, although reflective of thecareer psychology discipline in general, limits an in-depth understandingof the dynamic nature of children's career development. Furthermore, itlimits understanding of how best to provide practical interventions that willbuild a firm foundation for children's life span career development.

There have been two more recent substantive reviews of the researchliterature on the career development of children (Hrtung, Porfeli, &Vondracek, 2005; Watson & McMahon, 2005), botb of wbicb baveendorsed Gysbers's (1996) challenges to the field. In particular, thesereviews highlighted the critical importance of understanding careerdevelopment in this early, life span phase and the limited nature of this

Mary McMahon, School of Education, The University of Queensland, Brisbane,Queensland, Australia; Mark Watson, Department of Psychology, Nelson MandelaMetropolitan University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Correspondence concerningthis article should be addressed to Mary McMahon, School of Education, The Uni-versity of Queensland, Room 617, Social Sciences Building, Brisbane, Queensland4072, Australia (e-mail: marylmcmahon@uq.edu.au).

2008 by the National Career Development Association. All rights reserved.4 The Career Development Quarterly September 2008 Volume 57

understanding to date. Two central themes have emerged from theseresearch reviews: the need for a more holistic understanding of children'scareer development and the need for a greater focus on the process ofchildren's career development. Both reviews call for a more integrative,holistic understanding of children's career development by embeddingchildren's career development within life span career development andby exploring the how and what of children's career development.

The career development of children has been acknowledged as provid-ing foundational and precursory parameters that have an impact on lateradolescent educational and career development. In this regard, Hrtunget al. (2005) called for the linking rather than the isolation of careerdevelopmental periods in order to gain a more holistic understandingof how antecedents and dimensions in one career developmental periodmay affect other life span developmental periods. Similarly, Watson andMcMahon (2005) called for a more holistic understanding of children'scareer development by focusing on the process of career developmentlearning in children.

The disparate nature of children's career development literature atpresent (Watson & McMahon, 2004) reinforces the need to revisitGysbers's (1996) challenges in order to create a more comprehensiveunderstanding of the career development of children, both intra- andinterdevelopmentally. Specifically, there is a need to review the statusquo of the theory and practice of children's career development andhow these might be integrated with research agendas outlined in therecent reviews (Hrtung et al., 2005; Schultheiss et al., 2005; Watson& McMahon, 2005). This need provides the rationale for this specialsection of The Career Development Quarterly focusing on children'scareer development.

The special section features contributions from major authors in thefield of children's career development. Authors were invited to contributean article in which they would outline children's career developmentin relation to theory and practice and their integration with a researchagenda. Authors were asked to consider the status quo of children'scareer development, issues facing the field, what the future directionshould be, and what is needed to get there.

Content of the Special SertinnFollowing this introduction to this special section are five articles writtenby invited authors. Our summative article concludes this special section.It is not surprising, given the theme of this special issue, that there wasgeneral agreement throughout the articles that the issues facing the fieldof children's career development today are similar to those identifieddecades ago. A recurring dieme evident in the articles is the value ofsystematic programmatic research that investigates children's careerdevelopment in the context of their lives and in relationship to the lifestages of adolescence and adulthood.

The first two articles, those of Schultheiss and of Porfeli, Hrtung,and Vondracek, outline a range of issues and make recommendations forfuture research in the field of children's career development. These arefollowed by Helwig's and Tracey and Sodano's articles, which provide

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examples and illustrate the value of programmatic research that is muchneeded in the field of children's career development. The final invitedarticle, by Hrtung, Porfeli, and Vondracek, provides an example of afuture program of research emanating out of their prior work, whichwas also discussed in Porfeli et al.

In our summative article, at the end of this special section, we examinethe invited contributions in terms of emergent themes, divergent views,and evident gaps. This final article concludes with a proposed agendafor the way forward for theory, practice, and research in the field ofchildren's career development.

Reference.;Borow, H. (1964). An integral view of occupational theory and research. In H. Borow

(Ed.), Man in a world at work (pp. 364-388). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Gysbers, N. C. (1996). Meeting the career needs of children and adolescents. Journal of

Vocational Education Research, 21, 87-98.Hrtung, P. J., Porfeli, E. J., & Vondracek, F. W. (2005). Child vocational development:

A review and reconsideration. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 66, 385-419.Schultheiss, D. E. P., Palma, T. V., & Manzi, A. J. (2005). Career development in middle

childhood: A qualitative inquiry. The Career Development Quarterly, 53, 246-262.Vondracek, S. I., & Kirchner, E. P. (1974). Vocational development in early childhood:

An examination of young children's expressions of vocational aspirations. Journal ofVocational Behavior, 5, 251260.

Watson, M. B., & McMahon, M. (2004). Children's career development: A metatheoreticalperspective. Australian Journal of Career Development, 13, 7-11.

Watson, M. B., & McMahon, M. (2005). Children's career development: A research reviewfrom a learning perspective. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 67, 119-132.

Watson, M., & McMahon, M. (2007). Children's career development learning: A foundationfor lifelong career development. In V. Skorikov & W. Patton (Eds.), Career developmentin childhood and adolescence (pp. 29-46). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.

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