Gender and Career Development Projects in Early Adolescence: Similarities and Differences between Mother-Daughter and Mother-Son Dyads

Abstract

The way that mother-son and mother-daughter dyads engage in career projects was explored using the action-project differentiation procedure, a variant of the action-project method. The goal-directed actions, joint projects, and interactions of ten early adolescent boys and their mothers were examined in relation to the actions, projects, and interactions of ten early adolescent girls and their mothers. Many more similarities than differences were identified, including similarities in the kinds of projects that emerged, the amount of progress they achieved over time, and the patterns of communication that occurred. Two important distinctives also emerged: projects that included a focus on explicit vocational goals (e.g., career exploration, educational achievement) were common within the mother-son group but not the mother-daughter group; conflict and avoiding each other following conflict was often identified as a barrier to achieving projects in the mother-daughter group but not the mother-son group (although conflict was present in both groups).

Keywords:

• action-project method
• career development
• gender
• parent-child relations

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on work completed as part of the first author's doctoral dissertation. The authors would like to thank Dr. Sheila K. Marshall for participating in the consensus-based analytical process, reviewing an initial draft of the findings, and providing valuable feedback for the authors to consider.

Notes

Domene, J.F. 2005: The action-project differentiation procedure: Extending the method of analysis in action theory to allow for the examination of similarities and differences among sets of cases. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of British Columbia.