“I am my own creator”: Vocational identity of emerging adults in a local labor market and the globalized world
Successful identity development (Erikson, 1968) is considered important in the fast changing societies of the globalized world. Finding your “niche” in society through occupational choice is one of the major developmental tasks in emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2000). Vocational identity specifically r...
| Published in: | Tímarit um uppeldi og menntun |
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| Main Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | Icelandic |
| Published: |
Menntavísindasvið Háskóla Íslands
2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ojs.hi.is/tuuom/article/view/2775 https://doi.org/10.24270/tuuom.2018.27.5 |
| Summary: | Successful identity development (Erikson, 1968) is considered important in the fast changing societies of the globalized world. Finding your “niche” in society through occupational choice is one of the major developmental tasks in emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2000). Vocational identity specifically refers to the cognitive processes that are involved in relating self to work (Vondracek & Skorikov, 1997). In Iceland young people tend to drop out of upper secondary and tertiary education in higher proportions than elsewhere (Kristjana Stella Blöndal et al., 2010). Lack of school engagement (Kristjana Stella Blöndal & Sigrún Aðalbjarnardóttir, 2012) has been shown to influence dropping out of school. Youth in general are also indecisive in their career choices (Abrams et al., 2013) and do not carefully consider the many educational options (Svanhildur Svavarsdóttir, 2010). Problems surrounding career choice are possibly an indicator of poor vocational identity development. The purpose of this study is to start exploring the content of vocational identity of emerging adults in Iceland, focusing on the possible conflict between globalization and local culture (Hannerz, 1996; Jensen et al., 2011; McAdams & Cox, 2010). Vocational identity is an important construct in career development theories but its content still needs considerable research (Porfeli et al., 2013). A first step in understanding how Icelandic youth develop identities is using a narrative approach to allow full expression of their thoughts and ideas concerning issues and problems in relation to education and the labor market (McAdams & Pals, 2006). Narrative approaches have been increasingly applied in career development (Hartung, 2013) and are based on multiple theoretical views and strategies. We decided to apply McAdams’ (1993, 2015) life story approach designed to explore narrative identity to decode the content of vocational identity. Four 22 year old women and two men were interviewed. The semi-standardized interview included ... |
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