Off-campus UMass Amherst users: To download dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your UMass Amherst user name and password.
Non-UMass Amherst users, please click the view more button below to purchase a copy of this dissertation from Proquest.
(Some titles may also be available free of charge in our Open Access Dissertation Collection, so please check there first.)
What does a career mean? An examination of the career perceptions of five professional women
Abstract
This research focused on the subjective career perceptions of five professional women, all of whom had established career histories. Using the qualitative interview as a vehicle for data collection, their views were solicited concerning motivation, job satisfaction, career plans, career expectancies, and career importance. These interviews were particularly concerned with the ways in which the subjects described and accounted for their career experiences. The data which emerged was analyzed using the "grounded theory" by which the concepts and hypothesis of career development emerge from basic testimony rather than from previous theoretical assumptions. As the transcripts were analyzed, six major themes emerged from their stories; namely, work as an extension of the self, balance between career and family, the significance of work to others, autonomy, sex discrimination, and the nature of the professional task. In addition to the emergence of these themes, an integrative change process unfolded by which the women in the sample coped with the task of balancing these major themes around their sense of a career identity. A graphic model is presented which demonstrates the nature of this integrative process.
Subject Area
Womens studies|Developmental psychology|Individual & family studies|Sociology
Recommended Citation
Dwyer, Thomas Francis, "What does a career mean? An examination of the career perceptions of five professional women" (1991). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9132846.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9132846