Career Choice and Development

modern perspective. Perhaps it goes without saying that Holland’s
theory, which was presented in Chapter Nine by Spokane and his
associates, continues to be quite influential. Inexplicably, the The-
ory of Work Adjustment presented by Dawis in Chapter Ten has not
developed adherents as one would have thought. Gottfredson’s the-
ory (Chapter Four) continues to stimulate research, and it seems
likely that some of her ideas are being incorporated into the prac-
tices of career counselors. As Savickas illustrates in Chapter Five,
career development theory still receives attention in both research
and practice and thus is probably as viable as it was in 1996. Al-
though other theories of career choice and development are men-
tioned from time to time in the professional literature, the seven
theories listed here are the most influential at this time.

Cross-Cultural Sensitivity of Theories

The theory that I presented in the third edition (Brown’s values-
based, holistic model of career and life-role choice; Brown, 1996)
has evolved to include cultural values and has narrowed to focus
strictly on occupational choice, satisfaction, and success. This evo-
lution was in response to my continued concern about what I con-
sider to be the “white bread” nature of most of the extant theories
of career choice and development and my realization that cultural
values probably make a considerable difference in the career devel-
opment process. Earlier (Brown, 2000) I had criticized several arti-
cles in Career Development Quarterlyfor being culturally insensitive
because they attempted to apply several theories to the school-to-
work transition. Lent and Worthington (2000) disagreed with my
point of view, indicating that

(a) conclusions regarding the cross-cultural validity of particu-

lar career theories should be informed by empirical data, (b) it

is well to avoid perpetuating uniformity myths regarding par-

ticular cultures, and (c) generic theories may help to account

for the work transition of students from a variety of cultural

STATUS OF THEORIES OF CAREER CHOICE AND DEVELOPMENT 511