The Lived Experience of Work and Career: Women Whose Parents Lack Postsecondary Education
✍ Scribed by Melinda M. Gibbons; Marianne Woodside; Christine Hannon; Jeffrey R. Sweeney; John Davison
- Publisher
- American Counseling Association
- Year
- 2011
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 98 KB
- Volume
- 59
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0889-4019
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
There is a dearth of research exploring the career and work development of adults and the influence of family of origin on that development. In this qualitative study, the authors used a phenomenological approach to examine the career and work experiences of women whose parents have no education beyond high school and the influences of family on these experiences. Findings revealed 5 invariant themes, or constituents, that shaped the experiences of these women: being a daughter/ woman, support and encouragement, what matters, why I chose, and limits and options. Perseverance was found to be a related underlying component, or essence. Authors present implications for counselors working with adult women whose parents lack postsecondary education.
As of 2007, 86.4% of adult women had at least a high school diploma, and 28% had earned at least a bachelor's degree (National Center for Education Statistics, 2008). First-generation college students, or those students whose parents lack postsecondary education, account for about 16% of all 4-year college students (Capriccioso, 2006) and 45% of all community college students (Nomi, 2005). Many children of adults without a college degree are not entering postsecondary education. Also, differences exist between students whose parents have advanced education and those whose parents do not (Gibbons, Borders, Wiles, Stephan, & Davis, 2006;Nunez & Cuccaro-Alamin, 1998). This study describes the work and career experiences of adult women whose parents lack any formal education beyond high school and explores the influence of family of origin on those experiences.
According to Sharf (2010), work is defined as a "purposeful activity to earn money or other reward and possibly to produce a product or service to others" (p. 3), whereas career is a more general term describing the "roles individuals play over their lifetime" (p. 3). We used both terms interchangeably in our interviews for this study to create an easy understanding of what we were asking of the participants. Because of the phenomenological methodology used in the study, however, participants defined these terms in their own ways, and we provided no information to them that might alter their perceptions of these terms.