Finally, research from a contextual, if not a contextualist, per-
spective can take a variety of forms, as the discussion earlier in this
chapter indicates. For example, Blustein (2001) contextualizes work
and career behavior by examining the connections between work
and relationships more closely. Using qualitative methods that allow
research participants to share the meaning of lived experiences, he
and his colleagues provide significant evidence for the embedded-
ness of work and career in human relationships (Blustein et al.,
2001; Phillips, Christopher-Sisk, & Gravino, 2001; Schultheiss,
Kress, Manzi, & Glasscock, 2001). The challenge of their work, as
Flum (2001) notes, is the conceptualization of the complexity of
relationship and career—an observation that is addressed in action
theory. In the language of action theory, these studies point to the
construction of career as a joint project, as well as its embeddedness
in other life projects.
Other research has attempted to contextualize career by using
retrospective accounts. The studies in the edited text by Young and
Collin (1992) adopt an interpretative and contextualist approach.
However, although these studies describe social meaning, as well as
behavior and internal processes recalled retrospectively from the
perspective of social meaning, they address less well the career-
related action that occurs in the present. Approaches like these rec-
ognize the importance of working with social meaning, without
which research and theory are much less responsive to, and benefi-
cial for, practice.
Contextualizing Career Counseling
Young and Valach (1996) point out that careeris first and foremost a
practice construct. It represents the actions that people take in the
world as they engage in projects and realize their goals. Counsel-
ing, though clearly involving action and career, can be most readily
thought about as a project: the counselor and client working together
over a given period of time. This view suggests that practitioners
230 CAREER CHOICE AND DEVELOPMENT