Social Class, Poverty, and Career Development

Social Class
-The division of a society based on social and economic status.

Poverty
- It is the state of having few material possessions or little income.

Career Development
- It refers to the process an individual may undergo to evolve their occupational
status. It is the process of making decisions for long term learning, to align personal
needs of physical or psychological fulfillment with career advancement opportunities.

Working Poor
- working people whose incomes fall below a given poverty line due to low-income
jobs and low familial household incomes.
Working Poverty
- despite being employed you are still identified to be in the lower class or in poverty.

 Career counselors are in a unique position to have a positive impact on the lives
of individuals and families living with limited resources, but only if they are able
to effectively integrate social class issues into their treatment planning and
interventions.

 The integration of social class into career counseling can be challenging because
of the lack of clarity in identifying what is actually meant by social class (Liu,
2011; Liu, Ali, et al., 2004).

 A full discussion of social class must include groups with sufficient and even
significant resources, and there is some evidence that individuals who are
identified as privileged (i.e., wealthy, upper or upper-middle class) may also
confront important issues that limit their career options (Lapour & Heppner,
2009).

Vocational Resources
- guidance or provided services for the people who need it which is the lower class to
help them prepare or obtain employment goals to either advance from it or to retain it.
Those services will lay out how that goal will be obtained which is up to the
counselors.
 CONSIDERATION OF SOCIAL CLASS AND POVERTY IN MAJOR
CAREER DEVELOPMENT THEORIES
- Some aspects of career counseling theory may actually serve as a barrier to meeting
the needs of clients from a lower social status.

Person–Environment Fit Theories

- Both Holland’s (1997) RIASEC model and the Minnesota theory of work
adjustment focus on the fit between the individual and the work environment.
- Dawis and Lofquist (1984) have also outlined the use of TWA for on-the-job
adjustment and counseling for career change.
- which means that adjustment styles such as individuals apply when their satisfaction
is threatened, like when a person is doing poorly at his current job and isn’t meeting
the needs of the environment, therefore there’s a possibility that he will get fired. So
their adjustment is to prepare for another career change which is applicable in social
class and poverty issues and that is averting from unemployment.
- one more main reason why people lose jobs is because of other factors like
organizational downsizing.

Organizational downsizing
- represents the tragic reduction of an organization's workforce to reduce labor costs,
increase profitability and in times of severe economic shock.

Developmental Career Theories

 The career theory approach of Donald Super
- Neither did Super nor his colleagues addressed the needs of low income individuals.
- He emphasized that personal experiences interact with occupational preferences and
that the idea that developing a sense of self and realizing that you change over time is
important in planning your career. If only people in the lower class didn’t have other
factors to worry about, like desperateness for food, money, medicine and shelter, they
could focus on their own self-concept and plan a better career that synergizes with
themselves.

 Career construction theory of Mark Savickas

- Savickas believes that careers don't unfold but they are constructed by an
individual’s choices that is expressed by his idea of his own skills and abilities or self-
concept and support their goals in the social reality of work roles. But unfortunately
people with low income or in the lower class, their careers do unfold and it is mostly
because of the need for necessities instead of personal choice. So it’s not for their own
personal preferences but it’s to satisfy their daily needs.
 Career theory approach of Linda Gottfredson
- So in Gotfredson’s theory, depending on the children’s social value at an early age
they begin to identify what kind of work is possible for them to get. So the youth in
lower class families have different kinds of perspectives than those from middle-
higher class families. For the lower class they will probably identify what is possible
for them to achieve regarding their current situation rather than something that is too
hard to obtain but is still capable of achieving. The reason for ruling out those kinds
of high valued jobs is that they might seem too high for their own social standing and
that no one in their family has ever had that job. So they might choose lower class
jobs also and still remain in poverty.

 Career theory approach of Vondracek

- proposed a career life span development model that explicitly examines the
interaction of the individual and his or her social context.
- This approach to development can easily be transferred to career development for
lower-income and poor individuals, who are often in the situation of having to
respond and adapt to numerous forces outside their control.

Ecological Human Development

- talks about the influence of social environments on human development, it argues
that the environment you grow up in affects every aspect of your life.

Social Learning Theories

 Happenstance learning theory (HLT) Krumboltz
- Krumboltz (2009) proposed: ‘‘The goal of career counseling is to help clients learn
to take actions to achieve more satisfying career and personal lives—not to make a
single career decision’’.
- This focus on helping clients learn to take action, combined with an understanding
of social determinants, can contribute to developing effective interventions.

 Social cognitive career theory (SCCT; Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994)
- SCCT does explicitly acknowledge that the expression of interests is not the only
avenue by which career goals are set and work-seeking behaviors are initiated.
- In fact, the constructs of self-efficacy and outcome expectations may directly predict
goals and behaviors.
 ADDITIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL CLASS AND POVERTY

 Sociological Perspectives
- These perspectives help to elucidate the systemic factors that contribute to poverty.
In particular, sociologists tend to stress the importance of ‘‘previous generations of
wealth and neighborhood characteristics’’.
- It’s a perspective that explains other factors that contribute to poverty which is the
wealth of previous generations of their family when poor parents need to decide
whether to put the resources into the education of their children or pure survival needs
such as food and shelter and neighborhood characteristics which proposes that poor
neighborhoods isolate their inhabitants from access to other resources and that this is
particularly influenced by joblessness.

 Differential Status Identity

- It assess individuals’ perceptions of their own access to economic resources, access
to social power, and access to prestige, relative to others in society
- Considers internalized perceptions of one’s gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic
resources, and other social identities and how these perceptions influence
psychological and social well-being (Thompson & Subich, 2006).

Psychology of Working

• “Working for Survival”

• According to Sum and Khatiwada 2010, United States face a true labor market
depression.
• Classism as a “barrier”.
• Social Class Worldview Model promise in expanding psychology of working
by integrating classism as form of oppression.
• The Psychology of Working Theory (PWT) is a theoretical framework that
extends contemporary vocational research as it explains how structural
and psychological factors influence access to decent and meaningful
work (Allan et al., 2020; Duffy et al., 2016; Pires & Andrade, 2022).

Social Class Worldview Model

• A series of “lenses” which one’s social class and expectations are understood.
• One’s beliefs, attitudes, value, access to power, material/social resources,
socialization and experience with classism.
• All belong to an economic culture and experience pressure to meet
expectations.
Classism
• Interpersonal prejudice judgment based on one’s social class that is expressed
and perceived.
• It is the central of Social Class Worldview Model.

Forms of Classism

• Downward Classism - toward those perceived as worse off.

• Upward Classism - toward those perceived to be snobs and elitists.
• Lateral Classism - people perceived as similar to oneself.
• Internalized Classism - emotional and cognitive difficulty experienced by
individuals when they fail to meet the demands of their economic culture.

Four Step Model (Liu & Ali 2008)

1. Economic culture and types of messages received about working or losing

one’s job.
2. Explore these messages affect occupational choices.
3. Client’s experiences with classism.
4. Reflecting on messages received about work and the impact to the current job
search processes or educational planning.

Barriers to Working with the Poor

• Classism
– Results from cognitive distancing (Lott, 2002)
• Physical Access to services
- Smith (2010) argued that if we want to help individuals living in poverty,
then we need to provide services in locations that are convenient to these
client

The Influence of Social Class & Poverty on Career Development Milestones

• Career Aspirations and Expectations in Youth

– In 2009, 31 million children in the United States (42% of the child
population) lived in low-income families (Annie E. Casey Foundation,
2011), and the proportion of children of color living in poverty is even
greater (Edelman & Jones, 2004).
– Socioeconomic Status has effect on adolescent aspirations, parental
influences and expectations for work as well as education.

• Mothers aspirations for their children self efficacy and beliefs regardless of
SES were most predictive aspirations of occupational choices of the children.
• Sociopolitical Development
- is the process by which individuals acquire the knowledge, analytical skills,
emotional faculties, and the capacity for action in political and social systems
necessary to interpret and resist oppression.
• TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families)
 -TANF program, which is time limited, assists families with
children when the parents or other responsible relatives
cannot provide for the family's basic needs.
• Work Hope Scale
- work hope was shown to detect differences between
populations with differential access to financial resources,
leading the authors to conclude that it may contribute to a
unique understanding of the internal factors contributing to
work behaviors among economically disenfranchised youth and
adults (Juntunen & Wettersten, 2006).

Obtaining Employment

• School-to-work transition
- young adults experience but in the context of the current
chapter represents the transition from high school to work.
• Welfare-to-work transition
- transition programs to include skills-enhancing activities and
for programs that foster career advancement, in addition to
meeting the goal of obtaining initial employment.
• Project Hope
- was designed around interventions for families that targeted
self-exploration and goal setting, increased self-efficacy, and
specific job search skills.

Work Role Salience, Satisfaction and Performance

• Lower social class saw the work role as less salient or central to their self
concept.
• Additionally, have higher rates of absenteeism and turn over.
• Ilinois Scott high levels of job satisfaction.
• “Prove themselves” that support their work adjustment and health.

Implications For Practice

• Implications for practice involve discussing what your findings might mean
for individuals who work in your field of study.

Interventions with Youth

• Balanced Counselor’s awareness of relevant social pressures experienced by

the client.
• Interventions that are designed to increase academic coping self-efficacy,
work hope, and sociopolitical development among lower-income youth are all
likely to positively influence career attainment.
• Finally, interventions that include both parents and children.
Job-Seeking Assistance

• Career counselors often assist individual clients in the job search process,
providing guidance through career assessment, understanding P-E fit, and
identifying local resources for finding available jobs.
• First, it is important to identify the unique set of barriers faced by the
individual client.
• Second, it is important for counselors to be familiar with the local employment
services agencies and to collaborate with them in identifying resources for
clients.
• Finally, interventions that focus on developing increased agency and self-
efficacy are again relevant for the job search process and have the potential to
increase resiliency in the face of economic stressors.

Help With Work Adjustments

• (Blustein, 2006) provides useful principles for addressing issues related to

survival and power, social connectedness, and self-determination for workers.
• Such an approach would consider attitudes toward work, satisfaction gained
from work, and the salience of work as part of career counseling.

References:
 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
297203397_The_Psychology_of_Working_Theory
 https://www.statisticssolutions.com/the-implication-of-implications/
#:~:text=Implications%20for%20practice%20involve%20discussing,your
%20findings%20potentially%20affect%20practice%3F
 Steven-D.-Brown-Robert-W.-Lent-Career-Development-and-Counseling_-
Putting-Theory-and-Research-to-Work-Wiley-2013.pdf