A narrative analysis of how adolescents construct career

• Main Author: Wolinsky, Elaina Paulette
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2010
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/30280

Currently, the concept of career is evolving. While the concept of career is changing, the developmental stage of adolescence is being prolonged. Within this context, this study focused on the adolescent experience; specifically, how are grade 12’s constructing their careers according to this new vision of career and adulthood? The purpose of this study was to learn more about the adolescent experience to be better able to support them throughout this transition. This study used semi-structured interviews to gather narratives from seven grade 12 students. Through a holistic-content analysis, four main themes emerged from the data. There were three main themes around identity. The first explained how participants relied on their identity to make career decisions. The second theme was how participants expressed a need to explore who they are to be able to commit to career plans. The participants saw exploration as meeting new people and having new experiences. The activities involved were mostly travelling and living away from home. Once the participants felt that their exploration was over, they then felt that they would make a career choice. For the fourth theme, the career choice was discussed in terms of having formed a stable career identity, which would allow them to think about other parts of their lives, such as a family. The last theme addressed in this thesis was emotions that were present in the participants’ narratives, which were fear and excitement. From these findings, it is my hope that we continue to study career development through the use of narrative methodology to be able to learn more about the adolescent experience. === Education, Faculty of === Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of === Graduate