CHAPTER 10

Career and Societal Caring

Career and Societal Caring is a mutually interdependent process

in which children develop a comprehensive understanding and

utilization of self (life career caring) leading to a lifestyle based

on social interest in which they learn to belong, cooperate, and

work with others for the common good of all (societal caring).

LIFE CAREER DEVELOPMENT

Gyspers and Henderson (2001) defined life career development

as self-development that occurs over people’s life span and

involves the integration of life roles, settings, and events that

shape their lives. One’s life is thus one’s career and entails all life

experiences that affect the growth and development of human

beings.

Throughout the course of their lives, children experience a

variety of roles (son, daughter, friend, consumer, worker, spouse,

parent, and citizen), function in a multitude of settings (home,

school, community), and participate in numerous life events

(class plays, sporting events, graduation, job entry, marriage,

etc.), all of which will contribute to their development and

identity as caregivers and receivers of care. Thus, life career

development is an all-encompassing concept that unites the

previous chapters on physical caring, personal/emotional caring,

social caring, and cognitive caring into a unified whole in helping

children to develop a collective and comprehensive

understanding of themselves and to acquire the competencies

needed to make responsible life choices.

372 Elementary School Counseling

The concept of societal caring is strongly linked to career

development caring in that children are shaped by the society in

which they live and in turn help to shape it. As social beings

living in a social world, children are motivated to find their place

in the world. They strive to achieve a sense of belonging,

meaning, and purpose in their lives. This developmental process

follows a somewhat predictable path based on the research of

developmental theorists (Havighurst, 1972; Maslow, 1954;

Erikson, 1963; and others) who believe that if children’s natures

are nurtured along developmental lines, they will develop

according to nature’s plan and become responsible and fully

functioning human beings caring for themselves and the

communities in which they live.

Counselors, parents, teachers, administrators, and community

supporters are responsible for helping children to believe in

themselves, to develop a sense of industry, and to participate in

life roles, settings, and events that will have a positive effect on

their present and future life career development. Children and

adults have a psychological need to participate in life roles,

settings, and events in which they engage in meaningful work in

support of themselves, others, and their communities. “When a

person’s career [life] involves work that contributes to the greater

society, there is greater self-esteem, higher satisfaction with life

and enhanced personal meaningfulness, and social connection”

(McIntosh, 2000, p. 621).

CAREER AND SOCIETAL CARING: THE HEALTHY CHILD

Children who engage in career and societal caring learn that the

two concepts are inseparable. Human life and societal life are

born from the same seed. They must be nurtured and

strengthened together if both are to flourish and grow. The

healthy, caring child functions as a total organism and learns

from life roles, settings, and events the importance of making

and receiving caring choices and of how those choices contribute

to their own personal growth and development and to a stronger

and more caring society.

Career and Societal Caring 373

Healthy, caring children understand that despite everything

they do to care for themselves, they can never do enough, for

they also must depend on the care given to them by others.

Healthy, caring children are career and societally minded in that

they seek to develop certain characteristics that will help them

to care for others and for society. Children who are career and

societally minded

• respect the rights of others;

• cooperate with others;

• possess a realistic and positive self-concept;

• feel as though they belong and are socially useful;

• practice socially acceptable goals;

• understand their personal strengths and limitations;

• know their specific interests and talents;

• demonstrate effective interpersonal skills;

• function effectively in their roles as student, family member, friend, worker, volunteer, and so forth;

• contribute to the life of their home, school, and community;

• seek out life events in which they can make a caring contribution in support of others;

• understand the nature of work and why people work;

• understand that it takes the collective contribution of all

people to sustain a fully functioning and caring society;

• understand the relationship of classroom learning in shaping their life experiences and future adult
roles;

• recognize the wide variety of interdependent and caring

occupations needed to nurture healthy people and build

strong communities;

• enjoy greater freedom and expanded opportunity to explore occupations previously limited by such
stereotyping

as gender, physical characteristics, and race; and

• possess and use good work habits and decision-making skills

when participating in current life roles, settings, and events.

374 Elementary School Counseling

UNDERSTANDING THE NEED FOR CAREER AND

SOCIETAL CARING

Children, like adults, are looking for meaning and purpose in

their lives. The socialization process, which begins in early

childhood, involves children acquiring an awareness of

themselves and their surroundings and a sense of what it takes

to belong, to contribute, and to secure a meaningful place in

society.

Mosak (1995), in Corey (2001), stated that all human beings

must master five life tasks that involve (1) relating to others

(friendships), (2) making a contribution (work), (3) achieving

intimacy (love and family relationships), (4) getting along with

self (self-acceptance), and (5) developing a spiritual dimension

(including values, meaning, life goals, and a relationship with

the universe). These five life tasks are interconnencted and evolve

developmentally over a lifetime (life career development). These

same life tasks are referenced in the literature of Havighurst

(1972) (developmental tasks), Maslow (1954) (needs hierarchy),

Erikson (1963) (psychosocial stages of development) and in the

preceding four chapters (6–9) of this text. Children’s lives are

thus shaped by the people, places, and events they experience

and the perceptions they draw from their life experiences. Thus

the extent to which children will become caring children and

builders of caring communities will largely be determined by the

caring (nurturing) choices that adults make in shaping their life

career development.

Human development and career development theorists speak

to the developmental stage process that children go through as

they mature into caring and responsible adults. They likewise

speak to the need of nurturing that process so that children will

be exposed to the most conducive teaching-learning

environments and life experiences that will best meet their

developmental and unique needs through the most appropriate

behaviors to be learned.

Human and career development theorists are in general

agreement that childhood development cannot be left to chance.

Learning is always taking place, for good or bad, and what

children learn or fail to learn will either contribute to their

Career and Societal Caring 375

forming a healthy and successful identity or lead to their living

a life of confusion, frustration, and pain. Devoid of having

developed a constructive sense of social interest and a life of

giving, these children are likely to remain self-centered and live

adult lives lacking in meaning and purpose.

The need for life career education in the elementary school

grades is most evident and substantiated when one considers

that what children learn or fail to learn about life, living, and

the pursuit of happiness will be played out in the life choices

they make or fail to make. If educators fail to provide children

with a balanced education that teaches them how to give and

receive care and to become builders of caring communities, the

circle of caring (Chapter 12) will be forever compromised, and

caring choices in support of self, others, and society will be

diminished. What follows are a few simple truths that crystallize

the risks that children and society are likely to encounter in the

absence of career and societal caring.

• Failure to develop reality-based beliefs and goals. Children

live in a rapidly changing society and are exposed to a

multitude of people, life settings, and events that influence

their beliefs about themselves, others, and the world of

work. To the extent that children are exposed to inaccurate, stereotypical, and mythical life experiences,
they are

likely to develop faulty cognitions and misguided goals that

will influence their impressions of the world of work and

their life career options well into adulthood (Ginzberg,

Ginsburg, Axelrad, & Herma, 1951). Thus, children are

likely to prematurely restrict their understanding of work

and their rightful place in it. Personal, social, stereotypical,

and cultural biases that are formed during childhood—in

the absence of reality-based role models, accurate information, and settings and events that portray the
truth—
place children and society at risk unless addressed

(Ginzberg, 1972; Gottfredson, 1981; Gunn, 1964).

A well-designed life career education program (balanced

education) involving home, school, and community can expose children to role models, life settings, and
events that

enhance their life career awareness and exploration of work,

376 Elementary School Counseling

leisure time, and volunteer activities that will contribute to

their life career and societal caring.

• Failure to understand the relevancy of school. Throughout

this text, we have made it abundantly clear that children

who fail to understand the value of what they are learning

are more likely to lose interest in school and, more tragically, begin to develop physical,
personal/emotional, and

social problems that will carry over into adulthood. Lacking in self-understanding and the skills necessary
to live
and to make a living, these young people will be unable to

care for themselves or their families or to make a positive

contribution to society.

Children are more likely to enjoy and stay in school if

they receive a balanced education (life career education)

that is coherent, integrated, applicable, and timely; one that

relates classroom learning to life and living. A balanced

education relates academic curriculum understanding to the

seven themes of caring and the world of work (both paid

and volunteer). For example, children can be taught how

numbers will help them to make caring choices when caring for family and friends (a caring theme). They
can explore caring occupations (medical, scientific, and others)

involving workers who use numbers to care for others. They

can also explore hobbies and volunteer and leisure-time

activities in which numbers can help them to care for themselves, others, and society. When these kinds
of connections are made, children find school a fun place to be and

enjoy the love of learning that will stay with them beyond

their childhood years.

• Failure to develop caring and responsible lifelong work

habits. Work has been defined in many ways, but simply

stated, it involves people engaged in useful pursuits (paid

and volunteer) that contribute to personal, social, and societal caring. Children’s work is done at home,
in school,

and in their communities. Through work, children develop

social interests and a lifestyle that enhances their personal

health and wellness and helps them to secure their place in

Career and Societal Caring 377

society as responsible producers and consumers of goodwill and caring.

As children pursue their work (home, school, and society), they learn the importance of being a team
player, being punctual, following directions, producing quality work,

developing effective interpersonal skills, and respecting all

people of diversity. These are the very same traits and abilities that the workplace demands, expects,
and rewards.

Children first begin to develop lifelong work habits at home

and in school. Elementary schools that foster inclusion,

cooperation, and people-building in the context of a caring community give children the opportunity to
engage in

career and societal caring practices that foster sound work

habits.

The research is clear (Chapters 6–9) that children who

fail to develop responsible and caring work habits become

adults who experience a number of life adjustment problems, which include a high incidence of divorce,
addictions
(alcohol, drug, etc.), job dissatisfaction and frustration,

depression, a high rate of absenteeism from work, illness,

rejection by coworkers and management, and so on.

Leaving the development of sound work habits to chance

guarantees that children and society will suffer needless

losses in a world that depends on caring choices. One answer to solving this dilemma is an elementary
school counseling program that supports a balanced education (life

career education) that advocates on behalf of life career

and societal caring.

• Failure to develop an awareness and mastery of life career

tasks. Life career tasks are behaviors that children are

expected to master at each stage in their development. As

children accomplish these tasks, they develop a sense

of industry and begin to form an identity based on

self-assessment.

Children who are successful in mastering life tasks develop healthy self-concepts and emotional well-
being, foster caring relationships, make useful contributions (home,

378 Elementary School Counseling

school, and community), and develop lifestyles of purpose

and meaning. They understand their likes and dislikes,

strengths and weaknesses, and what they can do to selfimprove.

The successful mastery of life tasks has a direct bearing

on the world of work and on life career choices, as children will gravitate toward those life tasks in which
they

believe they possess strengths and avoid those in which they

feel inadequate. How children relate to life task development will thus have an impact on how they
define themselves in relationship to all life experiences. Will they see

themselves as being successful or unsuccessful, fearful or

outgoing, capable or incapable, dependent or independent,

fully functioning or diminished in their capacity to act? The

answers to these questions will be found in the caring

choices that adults make in helping children to explore their

roles in career and societal caring.

Life career and societal caring can best be accomplished

in career education programs (through balanced education)

that teach children life tasks in the context of daily life situations that reflect the world of work and
community building. We need to help children connect with such daily life

tasks as thinking on their feet, attending to detail, working

under pressure, learning how things work, following directions, working with people, expressing
themselves

through writing, and so on. As new life tasks are presented,

we can help children to identify with them using a Likerttype scale developed by Munson and Gockley
(1973). The

scale contains five positions that reflect emotionality (likedislike) and directionality (seek-avoid) when
personally
evaluating life tasks (see Figure 10.1).

As children examine various life tasks in which they participate,

they can rate themselves on a continuum. They also can explore

various life settings, events, and occupations that require the

use of these life tasks and decide if they would like to explore

ways in which they can change their ranking. For example,

Billy does not like talking in class (life task). This is a task that

Career and Societal Caring 379

he dislikes and avoids. However, he realizes that talking in front

of people is a skill that he needs to develop if he wishes to do

better in school and to pursue after-school work opportunities

with people in his community. Billy asks for help and learns

ways to feel more comfortable when talking with people. He

now rates this task as something that he still dislikes, but does

not avoid.

With practice, children will become more aware of the life

tasks they can perform and become more astute in examining

the various life events, settings, and occupations in which these

tasks can be used. Thus, children will become more effective in

making caring life choices that will lead to their own personal

fulfillment and to a stronger, more compassionate, and caring

society.

The Cumulative Effects of Risk

In the absence of a life career education program, academic

subjects are often taught in isolation with emphasis being placed

on the mastery of disconnected information, skills, and attitudes

learned through repetition and tested through meaningless recall.

These memorized and often isolated bits of information and

seemingly unimportant skills, lacking in relevancy and purpose,

are seldom given meaning in the context of their usefulness

(learning to live, learn, and work). When children are subjected

to this type of an education, they fail to develop an awareness of

380 Elementary School Counseling

themselves, of how they are changing, of what they would like

to be, of what they would like to do, of what they would like to

have, and of what they would like to give. They fail to

understand the people-building mission of the school, to use

what they are learning in order to make caring choices in the

seven themes of caring, and to find a purposeful and meaningful

place in the world of work (home, school, and community).

Career and societal caring practices become null and void in

elementary schools that unknowingly nurture the cumulative

effects of risk rather than support a balanced education rooted

in people-building and career and societal caring.

ENHANCING CAREER AND SOCIETAL CARING

THROUGH CARING CHOICES

Career development cannot be separated from human

development. Life career education cannot be separated from a

balanced education. Subject matter learning cannot be separated

from life learning, nor can life choices be separated from career

choices. The goal of career and societal caring during the

elementary school years is to help children realize how what

they are learning in school is contributing to their evolvement as

caring human beings and builders of caring communities.

Enhancing career and societal caring can best be accomplished

through an education that connects school academic subjects

with the seven themes of caring and relates both of these areas

to the world of work and a wide variety of occupations. To the

extent that this is accomplished during the elementary school

years, children will develop an awareness of self leading toward

a more effective understanding and utilization of self in relation

to others and work. As children learn more about themselves in

relation to work and society, they will make caring choices in

support of themselves, others, and the society-at-large.

The Concept of Work

Hoyt (2001) stated that “Work is clearly the bedrock of career

education” (p. 327). In order to understand career education

(basic education), work must be clearly defined as well. Hoy