Content area
Full Text
Hallmarks of the modem era such as logical positivism, objectivistic science, and industrialism are being questioned as we decenter from an "us versus them" singular perspective toward a multiple perspective discourse. All indicators suggest the move from seeking truth to participation in conversations; from objectivity to perspectivity. In tune with these societal changes, career counseling seems to be reforming itself into an interpretive discipline in which practitioners help individuals to relate their quest for meaning to the division of labor in their community. The postmodern era has already engendered six innovations in counseling for career development.
As we approach the turn of the millennium, our society moves to a new vantage point from which to view the work-role and career development. Counseling for career development must keep pace with our society' s movement to a postmodern era. Thus, counselors must innovate their career interventions to fit the new Zeitgeist. The first section of this article describes how views on the work-role and career development have changed as our society evolved from romanticist to modernist world views. The second section delineates how our society is currently evolving into a post industrial society in preparation for the postmodern era. In the final section of this article, six specific innovations in career counseling for the postmodern era are described.
VOCATIONAL AND CAREER ETHICS
We can expect to change our society's work ethic as we stand on the threshold of a new century. This is because Americans have done it the last two times a century turned (Maccoby, 1981). During the 19th century, our society espoused a "vocational ethic" of work that valued independent effort, self-sufficiency, frugality, self-discipline, and humility. The ethic was best articulated by Benjamin Franklin and most clearly enacted by craftspeople and farmers. The vocational ethic was a secular version of the work ethic the Puritans brought to this continent. The vocational ethic fit the Romantic atmosphere of the 19th century, a time dominated by feelings. Bruner (1986) noted that Romantic "conceptualism" asserted that meaning is in person. Because motivation and meaning resided in the person, the path to success and personal fulfillment was through selfexpression and individual effort. Thus, the vocational ethic encouraged passion, genius, and creativity in all work. Workers were to...