ticularly relevant. First, the goals of actions rather than their causes
are emphasized. “Studying for an examination” is an action that
career counselors can readily understand, not so much because it is
caused by certain factors but because it embodies the individual’s
and others’ (for example, family members’ and teachers’) under-
standing of and response to their context. Second, actions are
embedded in their context, which has implications for the client-
counselor relationship and the interpretation they engage in
together. Third, change has a prominent role in career. Fourth,
because events take shape as people engage in practical action with
particular goals, analysis and interpretation are always practical.
Researchers and counselors look at an action for a particular pur-
pose. What is crucial here is that goal, end, and purpose define the
practicality of action and our understanding of it. Finally, just as
contextualism works from the present event outward, so counselors
work from their clients’ present outward.
As a world hypothesis or root metaphor, contextualism addresses
ontology, epistemology, and practice. We can illustrate these domains
by using everyday statements about career. Ontology deals with
questions of being. It addresses the “What is it?” of an object. For
example, the statements “I have a job that is meaningful to me” and
“Globalization is a new aspect of the world we live in” apply to the
“What it is” of career. Other statements reflect the way we know
about career, that is, epistemology or knowledge. “I count a lot on
what I learn from experience” and “You can’t believe everything
you read in the newspapers about how jobs are changing” are exam-
ples of such statements. Finally, there is the domain of how we do
things (for example, “Making connections with others is the way I
am going to find a job” and “Career counseling involves the assess-
ment of interests”). This is the domain of practice or doing, or of
achieving changes. We identify and illustrate these domains to
indicate that a contextual explanation of career, to be inclusive, has
to address what career is, how we know about it, and how we inter-
vene, facilitate, and guide it.
A CONTEXTUALIST EXPLANATION OF CAREER 209