Integrating barriers to Caucasian lesbians' career development and Super's life-span, life-space approach

Career Development Quarterly, March, 2004 by Chloe J.C. House

Researchers and practitioners do not fully understand the nature and extent of actual and perceived barriers in lesbians' career development (S. L. Morrow, P. A. Gore, & B. W. Campbell, 1996). In this study, 10 lesbian women, ages 42 to 64 years, were interviewed and asked to identify barriers to career development due to sexual identity. Integration of sexual orientation in D. E. Super's (1990) Life-Span, Life-Space approach is proposed.

**********

Super (1990) defined career development as a dynamic, longitudinal, and developmental process essentially consisting of developing and implementing the self-concept. He developed a collection of theories that focus on the interaction of the person and environment, a process that resulted in the Life-Span, Life-Space approach to career development. Super's (1990) life-span model of career development has five stages: Growth, Exploration, Establishment, Maintenance, and Disengagement. Super theorized that a person journeys through developing interests, skills, and values; exploring the world of work and trying tentative choices; developing greater commitment to a choice; adapting to changes in the world of work; and moving toward selective participation and retirement.

Super (1990) developed the Archway Model because he wanted to more clearly portray the biological, psychological, and socioeconomic factors in career choice and development. The doorstep of the Archway Model reflects the biographical and geographical foundations of human development (Super, 1990). The doorstep is then the base for two columns. The societal column reflects variables such as school, family, peer group, economy, and social policy. The psychological column reflects variables such as values, needs, interests, personality, and aptitudes. It is intended that the variables in each column will interact. The arch of the model is representative of one's career, including development stages, role self-concepts, social learning, and decision making.

Counselors know it is important to understand people holistically (Arredondo et al., 1996). The Archway Model seeks to address variables in career development, but it does not identify sexual orientation as a potential variable. Many scholars recognize that sexual orientation is an important biographical characteristic in career development (Dunkle, 1996; Fassinger, 1995; Morgan & Brown, 1993; Nauta, Saucier, & Woodard, 2001).

Literature Review

In a review of the literature, Croteau (1996) stated that fear of discrimination, particularly if sexual orientation is disclosed or discovered, is a major feature of lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons' work experiences. Chung (2001) noted that work discrimination has significant implications for the vocational behavior, career choice, and psychological well-being of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. No federal law protects lesbian, gay, or bisexual workers from workplace discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia ban discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation (Human Rights Campaign, 2004).

Related to discrimination is the broader term heterosexism, which refers to the normalizing and privileging of heterosexuality and calls attention to institutional and interpersonal prejudice and stigma against people who are not heterosexual (Waldo, 1999, p. 218). Waldo used structural equation modeling to find that, in a sample of 287 gay, lesbian, and bisexual people, the standardized path coefficients from heterosexist organizational climate (HOC) to outness was -.46, from HOC to indirect heterosexist experiences was .56, and from HOC to direct heterosexist experiences was .50. The goodness-of-fit indices for Waldo's models were .85. Heterosexist experiences also had a positive relationship with psychological distress (.36, p < .01) and a negative relationship with health satisfaction (-.19, p < .01). In addition, Driscoll, Kelley, and Fassinger (1996) found that positive perceptions of workplace climate had a path coefficient of .58 (p < .01) to job satisfaction.

Lesbians, specifically, face unique struggles negotiating a positive self-concept in the face of their devalued gender and sexual orientation (Fassinger, 1996). An issue lesbians face is sexual identity development, the process of coming to know and value one's identity as a lesbian (Reynolds & Hanjorgiris, 2000). In a review of the literature on vocational psychology of gay men and lesbian women, Croteau, Anderson, DiStefano, and Kampa-Kokesch (2000) found that sexual identity development can affect career development to varying degrees. In the process of sexual identity development, lesbian women may be absorbed in issues of sexuality, community, and family attitudes, leaving little energy for career development tasks (Dunkle, 1996; Fassinger, 1996). Boatwright, Gilbert, Forrest, and Ketzenberger (1996) found, in their qualitative study, that sexual identity development could "delay, disrupt, or derail" lesbians' career development. Lesbian sexual identity development was similar to a "second adolescence." Lesbian identity development in later life may affect work role salience, self-esteem, or achievement of seniority at work (Dunkle, 1996).