فرهنگ و روانشناسی حرفه ای : دیدگاه ساختارگرایی اجتماعی

This paper reflects on the need to re-examine cultural and cross-cultural psychology with a view to re-invigorating them and placing them at the center of discourse in career psychology. One perspective that can be employed to achieve these goals is social constructionism in that it questions the centrality of post-positivism in cultural and cross-cultural career psychology and shifts the focus to people in relationships. Emphasis is placed on understanding relationships in culture and recognizing that cultures are neither static nor independent variables but central to and embedded in career psychology. Social constructionist perspectives on cross-cultural counseling in career psychology and the development of indigenous career psychologies are discussed.

Psychology’s marginalization of cultural and cross-cultural psychology has its origins in an experimental psychology that was fueled by positivism. Experimental psychology focused primarily on reducing the psyche to interlocking parts rather than attempting to understand human beings in their wider relational contexts. In psychology, culture is largely seen as a nuisance variable or an independent variable that needs to be controlled through sampling so as to make way for the quest for universal laws and theories that would be applicable for all peoples (Misra & Gergen, 1993). Cultural and cross-cultural issues in career psychology have also been marginalized, but they have the potential to play a major role in theoretical and empirical research in career psychology domains. However, both cultural and cross-cultural psychologies are firmly entrenched in and seldom deviate significantly from modernist projects. While some researchers and practitioners underscore the importance of cultural issues to better understand vocational behavior, such issues remain largely sidelined in the career literature. Here it is argued that career psychology is cultural and that career psychologists need to infuse their work with cultural issues more than they have to date. In addition, if cross-cultural career psychology continues to follow the positivistic traditions of mainstream psychology, it will continue, in effect, to argue for cultural homogeneity rather than human diversity (Moghaddam & Studer, 1997). With this in mind, this paper will discuss how social constructionism can play a role in firmly embedding cultural and cross-cultural issues in career psychology and offer alternative approaches to mainstream research strategies. Before discussing such approaches, it is important to describe the terms positivism, post-positivism, and social constructionism.

This discussion has offered some alternative perspectives to cultural issues in career psychology. While post-positivist methodologies and therapies clearly dominate cultural and cross-cultural psychology, they are not the only or ‘correct’ means of addressing these issues. Social constructionism seeks to demystify these narratives and to seek additional and alternative worlds. Extant career theory and counseling strategies are indigenous in outlook and do not represent the richness and variety of cultures at work. Social constructionism’s emphasis on relationships in cultural contexts is a radical departure from situating problems within individuals as is common in mainstream psychology. Social constructionists do not view individuals as being the effect of or product of culture. People create and are created by cultures in a complex matrix of interweaving relationships. More powerful and holistic ways of understanding the cultural meanings people have when interacting in work domains are needed and here social constructionism offers new perspectives and insights.