The interplay of multicultural and career identity development

Abstract

Career identity development, involving exploration and commitment, is a lifelong process by an individual that is fundamental to shaping one’s career. Although prior research has investigated what may lead one to develop a strong and clear career identity, there is limited understanding of the cultural influences on career identity development relevant to multicultural individuals. Integrating the identity status paradigm with a narrative identity perspective, we propose that career identity development interplays with multicultural identity development. We explore this interplay through in-depth interviews with Chinese-ethnic multicultural individuals. From the interviews, we elucidate a typology (Multicultural-Career Identity Interplay, ‘MCII’) to explain how multicultural identity and career identity development are interrelated in systematic ways (Commanding, Cruising, and Contending), and introduce a dual-dimensional, relational-oriented framework of career paths. We explain how each MCII pattern corresponds to individual career paths and is associated with immigration age. Our study extends career identity development theory into the cultural identity domain, providing a more nuanced understanding of the dynamic and culturally influenced career development of multicultural individuals. The findings can help individuals and career counsellors better understand and support the career identity development of individuals who identify with more than one culture.

Keywords:

• Career identity
• multicultural
• identity development
• narrative
• interview

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Also known as occupational, vocational, work or professional identity (Skorikov & Vondracek, 2011), though there are some nuances among these terms (Fugate et al., 2004; LaPointe, 2010).

2 Multicultural identity and ethnic identity are somewhat interchangeable terms, but the emphasis in the former is on multiple cultures, whereas the emphasis in the latter is on the ethnic – i.e., non-mainstream – culture.

3 This project was approved by the Deakin University Human Research Ethics Committee, ID 2019-138, and The University of Melbourne Business and Economics Human Ethics Advisory Group, ID 1750637.3.

4 We obtained written informed consent for participation and recording of interviews from the informants.

5 Data reported in this paper were collected as part of a larger study that examined the vocational experiences of multicultural individuals.

6 One informant, M12, considered his identity to be “none” but he was comfortable with that.

7 With one exception, F5, who immigrated at 13 years of age.

8 Other career paths identified in this group were Discovering own path and Following the path carved by their parents, but as these paths were only observed in one participant each, we do not discuss them in this pattern.

9 We thank an anonymous reviewer for raising this possibility.