Scrutinising the psychology of careers during the twentieth century requires a close examination of the cultural context in which organisational careers emerged, then flourished, and now languish. Following this analysis, the present chapter discusses how vocational psychology, a discipline born early in the twentieth century, has responded to cultural transformations that, as they reshape work and its social organisation, demand renovations in the psychology of careers.

The context for career

The editors of this volume define career broadly, ‘as the engagement of the individual with society through involvement in the organisation of work’. They do so to allow chapter authors to specify manifold meanings for career. Yet, in so doing, they highlight the very essence of career, the social context of work. Different social contexts condition different social arrangements of work. The dominant arrangements that have characterised a particular historical era and specific society have been usefully designated by different concepts, including vocation, craft, and career. From this perspective, my understanding of career has a particular meaning, embedded in twentieth-century culture and society in North America. This historical era gave rise to the essential structure that required most workers to construct careers within bureaucratic boundaries, thus defining the concept of career with a very specific meaning. Now, changes in that cultural context may be devitalising the concept and experience of career, or at least redefining its core meaning.

To trace the rise and fall of career in North America, I examine social conventions, shared assumptions, and implicit values surrounding survival and procreation, that is work and family as central concerns of people.