This article considers social cognitive career theory (SCCT; Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994) as a vantage point from which to view the school-to-work transition process. Rather than emphasizing the period just before high school graduation, SCCT focuses on 6 developmentally linked themes that unfold throughout the school years. An emphasis on these themes (formation of self-efficacy and outcome beliefs, interest development, interest-goal linkages, translation of goals into actions, performance skills, negotiation of transition supports and barriers) suggests targets for developmental and remedial interventions that promote students' career development across the school years and after work entry.
A few years ago we presented a social cognitive career theory (SCCT) of the processes through which people form academic and occupational interests, make educational and occupational choices, and achieve varying levels of success in school and work (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994). Anchored in Bandura's (1986) general social cognitive theory, SCCT focuses on several "agentic" variables (self-efficacy, outcome expectations, goals)-and on how they interact with other person and environment variables (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, social supports and barriers)-in the context of people's career development. SCCT has attracted much empirical attention, including recent tests of several of its propositions with racial/ethnic minority and majority students at pre-college and college levels (Fouad