How Personal and Social Change Shape Career Aspirations - Literature review Example

How personal or individual and wider social and institutional change shape career aspirations Name Professor Institution Course Date How personal or individual and wider social and institutional change shape career aspirations Technology is a crucially important factor of the human situation. Technologies offer the source of wealth in terms of employment and leisure. As much as they help change the world, they pollute and kill as well. As an Information technology student, I would say that change is taking place rapidly in this field; therefore anybody pursuing this career has to keep updated and not to be overtaken by events. Technologies transform either due to scientific advance or logics; hence affect society. As much as technology has made the world to become a global village, it has divided people and affected people in terms of race, class, gender, ethnicity, family circumstance and education. Today, one of the most outstanding topics that can never be overlooked is career or employment. The nature of career is currently changing with the growth of focus on non-class contexts of identity and social division together with an increasing interest in gender and ethnic inequalities (Anthias 2001, p.839). It is claimed that hypothesis of social divisions can demonstrate how wider social and institutional change constitute central components of the stratification in modern societies. It is this social and institutional change that also changes the nature of career in terms of race, class, gender, ethnicity, family circumstance and education. Transformation in the platform of long-term profession makes understanding the elements of various forms of career increasingly significant to careers research (Saunders, Naidoo & Griffiths 2007). With this realization, this research seeks to offer a framework for which personal or individual and wider social and institutional change shape career aspirations. The field of information technology is where people interact on a daily basis over the web. As people interact they share their daily experiences, and as such they change their perception positively or negatively about people. It is this wider social interaction that shapes career aspirations. Information technology also changes institution’s way of doing things; running of business and the way people do things. As people go through these experiences in their day-to day lives, they learn different concepts which shape their profession. Apart from working from home on an individual level, I met people during my internship at the institution of work and interact with them for a period of six months. In the place of work one meets people of different culture, ethnicity, race, religion, family circumstances and educational background (Anthias 2001, p.851). Meeting new people makes us realize what we did not know about them, or assist us shun the perception about them. Although understanding new cultures ought to bring us together, we normally allow social stratification both in society and workplace to divide us. While working with people from different cultural background I learnt to appreciate than before. The field of technology is one of careers that face criticism due to the negative impacts that comes with it. It is in the same career that faces gender discrimination, racial discrimination and cyber bulling amongst others. Most people believe that career like the information technology is not a woman’s field; this discourages women from taking this course. Similarly, employers discriminate against the women when hiring employees preferring men. In a nutshell, they believe that women are incompetent when it comes to Hardware and software engineering. As I interact with people all over the social media, I relate with people all over the world. In various sites I visit, I sometimes come across racial or ethnicity abuse directed at a certain individual. The hate directed at individual can discouragement, committing suicide and even trauma. Education and wider social interaction in places of education helped me overcome stereotype with regard to gender disparity (Cross & Bagilhole 2002, p.221). For instance, Information technology field has been in the past considered a male gender career. Employment segregation by sex still remains the most persistent factor of the job market. In fact, a research carried in 2000, showed that up to 79% are employed as computer analysts or programmers while only 29% of women are employed in this field (Cross & Bagilhole 2002, p.210). Gender disparity in the job market works vertically and horizontally. Therefore, not only are women and men distributed qualitatively into different job categories, the labor market is manifested with women tremendously intense at the low levels of the job hierarchy in relation to salary or wages, authority and status (Watson, Buchanan, Campbell & Briggs 2003). The research is true reflection of the workplace today. This can be confirmed by the fact that, in the workplace where I undertook my internship, out of the 10 students who were on internship, only 2 were female in terms of gender. Careers in the last few years however demonstrates that the employment model indicates a declining part of the labor force in numerous developed countries such as the US, Britain, France, New Zealand, Canada and even Japan among others (Brown 1995, p.34). This has been greatly contributed by advancement in technology. However, careers are more than technology and how we relate with each other to develop it. There are some factors that have also contributed to a decline of the human capital. Anthias (2001) claims that gender; ethnicity, race, religion and family circumstance normally offer a mechanism for exclusion at work place. Perception, stereotype, and prejudice with regard to personal circumstances have contributed to crumbling of careers. However, education stands out to be the only factor that helps us understand how personal circumstance, wider social and institutional change shape career aspirations. More recent researches on the intra-organizational mobility have paid attention to family and gender role and characteristics in shaping up the patterns of careers. The number of male students is still higher in the institution of learning compared to female students. Parents still prefer taking male children to school rather than female. In a class of 36 students undertaking a degree in information technology, we had only had 11 female students in our class. These researches have demonstrated that, women and men can be regarded to be equal. However, women will probably not get promoted compared to men (Valcour & Tolbert 2003, p.269). Less focus has been given to the function of family attributes in establishing promotion likelihood, but some suppositions can be portrayed from researches that have evaluated earnings attainment, because promotions and earning are closely connected (Duberley & Cohen 2010, p.189). Even in the field of nursing, for instance, in which men are considered minority in this profession, men still dominate with a large share in the top management (Saunders, Naidoo & Griffiths 2007). The reasons why men take a large share in management positions in the field of nursing are because of the influence of gender on promotion-based opportunities. As the world is changing and people interact more, perception is slowly dying and women are now taking courses in men-considered careers like computer science and engineering among others. People are realizing that there are no facts to support claims that field like computer science or information technology belong to men. However, women are now doing well in this field and can be employed just like men. Widespread transformation in the labor-force participation among women in the last the last 30 years has raised issues for study on careers. In issues with the general change in the gender inclusion of the labor force, women have more and more access entry to what at one point considered a completely male career patterns (Cross & Bagilhole 2002, p.213). Hence, how career patterns could change by gender is a concern which prompts cautious exploration. As a result of increased labor-force composition among women, a dual-earner household is currently the modal family form in the most developed societies (Cross & Bagilhole, B 2002, p.216). Duberley & Cohen (2010, p.191) argues that in a family where both the wife and the husband are among the paid labor force, the challenges of balancing work-related issues and family needs are believed to become significant impacts on men’s including women’s careers Education has made a contribution to a radical progress in the women’s status. An educated modern woman no longer puts up with the double standard of principles. It has assisted them to look for a job outside the relatives. Specifically, mass education in the civilized communities has inculcated the feeling and sense of equality (Dolton & Vignoles 2000). These transformations in the modern place of work point out the desire for a good mastering of the determinants of intra in addition to inter-organizational mobility, and for more focus to the influence of family and gender variables of both types of mobility (Valcour & Tolbert 2003, p.272). These issues must be addressed in a comparison to job transitions in and across organizations. The changing world economy and globalization are driving a transformation to knowledge-oriented economies (Ball 2002). In specific, developing nations require knowledge-oriented economies not just to create more effective local economies, but to capitalize on the opportunities on the context of economy outside their borders. In the social platform, the society which its people are knowledgeable brings great information access and new ways of social relationships and cultural appearance. Individuals thus can get opportunities to contribute and influence the progress of the societies. Particular ideas concerning the link between education and employment opportunities are presumed by majority of society (Ball 2002). It is presumed initially that acquiring a formal education is important to realizing development and to gaining career opportunities. Education and information technology plays a significant role in the society that people cannot imagine living without it. It is an established component of civilization of the human society (Brown 1995). It does not just help in developing healthy settings but it also builds a developed community. In fact, all things people create today are rooted in the knowledge which people acquire all through their life by means of education. Education is a never ending element because of the changing nature of the world. As such, people must keep updated with the change; even at work, people still learn (Brown, Hesketh & Williams 2003, p126). Most institutions now like to be branded a learning organization because they adopt training as a way of keeping its employees update with the current affairs. If they do not institute internally, they encourage their employees to take up courses that can improve their career prospective (Brown, Hesketh & Williams 2003, p.114). People also improve their education for personal reasons like for seeking promotion or to equip themselves with current knowledge. According to research, gender disparities in education are because of the external practices such as the upbringing and socialization; and particularly the socialization that happens in institutions of learning (Anthias 2001, P.846). Lower levels school is specifically a significant place in this setting a child who initially socializes and recognizes his or her peers and whilst relating and playing with them employs classroom as a platform for learning gender responsibilities, the femininity and masculinity. In this kind of setting, they are inclined to create relations with only the kids of similar gender. Additionally, school absolutely transforms the child’s past life and replaces home-based life with school-based one (Brown, Hesketh & William 2003, p.119). Besides their interactions with peers, another issue which makes the gender identity is the divided expectations and attitudes of teachers towards male and female children. In this situation as well, the expectations of the teachers correspond with the margins of gender segregation. For instance, if a female student gets a higher grade in one of the males’ considered subjects, this success will be credited not to her talent that is absolutely usual to have, but to her diligence and effort; while, the failure of a male student in the similar subject will be described with some stereotype using some phrase – “He is talented but lazy” (Dolton & Vignoles 2000, p.186). Education forms part of result of one’s labor, endeavor to get an education, and get new skills (Chillas 2010, p.146). Once someone has the knowledge and skills, they can become part of individual "capital" to invest in for future growth, development and advancement (Brown, Hesketh & Williams 2003. P.110). Concerns on men’s masculinity have created some reactions that try to hold on traditional masculine values that are associated with the past. By claiming that they do a good and a more professional job compared to their female counterparts, even at the time employing skills usually identified with female gender, the men sustain themselves as the leading gender. Also, some men recreate the sensitivities of their profession as being like the men’s profession. For instance, refuting that it entails caring only or focusing the different roles they do compared to their female counterparts. Also, they could consider that even the ladies who perform the work must be in somehow masculine or they focus their muscular identification with the men in their profession demonstrating they are `one of the men'. Careers form a combination of ambition, ability and the opportunities accessible to an individual (Brown 1995, p.13). It is therefore crucial to take care in generally employing the concepts of career growth and conventional profession path modeling, as numerous issues stated above are reliant on the personality. The new career concept contends that less attention has to be paid to the ‘old trend’ knowledge of the ideal career which is described by institutions and traditions. Somewhat, professions have to be individually defined paths which overcome occupational, organizational and geographical boundaries and restrictions (Anthias 2001, p.846). Those desiring to begin a career in any field require information access based on career development programs and strategies. They require understanding what sector accepted educational requirements will provide them for that particular career, and they must understand the dynamic nature and diversity that comes with their careers (Ball 2002). Individual ought to have personalities influenced or shaped in manners which fit into an organizational culture. Education anywhere has the role of making social personalities. Education assists in conveying culture by means of appropriate shaping of social personalities (Watson, Buchanan, Campbell & Briggs 2003). In this manner, it adds to the integration, to reproduce and to relate with people of different backgrounds as well. According to Ball (2002) education serves as driving force in the workplace by articulating value which unites different workmates in the organization. A family might fail to offer a child the necessary knowledge, values and social skill that can help shape his future while interrelating to the general society. The educational institutions or school can assist the child to acquire new skills and learn to interrelate with individuals of different social settings. Education is considered as the overriding variable in the incident of social change. According to Brown, Hesketh& Williams (2003, p.115) education is a significant way of acquiring economic and economic rewards in the workplace when building a career. Promotion is earned on the basis of education, so is the salary increment. Education has turned out to be fundamental to the economic prosperity. It has now turned into an extensive and a strongly visible organization. Education is controlled by the leading members of society in order to meet their description society’s demands. It is those children whose parents are wealthy that get good education in good schools. Transformations in the educational system prompt economic and economic changes, strong social mobility and more skilled human capital for technologically-oriented sector (Brown, Hesketh & Williams 2003, p.121). Planned educational improvements, programs and policies might add to the social relations and a highly educated workforce. It is sad watching women getting discouraged from taking courses like information on the ground that they are male-oriented courses and people getting racially abused due to prejudice. The government must play a role no gender discrimination against women both at the college and during hiring and even at the place of work. The governments must also come up with tough rules that protect its citizens from racial abuse. In conclusion, education remains a key component in shaping up any career and governments and parents regardless of circumstances must make an effort to enhance education to create a platform where everybody can get access to education that can help them relate well the greater society despite of the racial, gender, ethnic and religious differences. In all these, information technology plays an important role in accessing new information and spreading to a large group of people. Therefore, governments need to encourage female students to take courses involving information to not only get rid of the gender stereotype but also to expand the economy. References Anthias, F 2001, The Concept of `Social Division' and Theorizing Social Stratification: Looking at Ethnicity and Class, Sociology, Vol. 35, No. 4, 835-854. Ball, S 2002, Class Strategies and the Education Market: the middle classes and social advantage, London, Routledge Falmer. Brown, P, Hesketh, A. & Williams, S 2003, Employability in a knowledge- driven economy, Journal of Education and Work, Vol. 16, No. 2, p. 107-26. Brown, P 1995, Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion: Some observations on Recent Trends in Education, Employment and the Labour Market, Work Employment & Society, Vol. 9, No. 1, p. 29-51. Chillas, S 2010, Degrees of fit? Matching in the graduate labor market, Employee Relations, Vol. 32, No. 2, p. 156–170. Cross, S & Bagilhole, B 2002, Girls Jobs for the Boys? Men, Masculinity and Non Traditional Occupations, Gender, Work and Organization, 9, 2, 204-226. Duberley, J & Cohen, L 2010, Gendering career capital: An investigation of scientific careers, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 76, No. 2, p. 187-197. Dolton, P & Vignoles, A 2000, ‘The incidence and effects of over-education in the UK graduate labor market’, Economics of Education Review, Vol. 19, No. 2, p. 179-98. Saunders, P., Naidoo, Y & Griffiths, M 2007, Towards New Indicators of Disadvantages: Deprivation and Social Exclusion in Australia Social Policy Research Centre, Sydney Valcour, P & Tolbert, P 2003, Gender, family and career in the era of boundarylessness: Determinants and effects of intra- and inter-organizational mobility, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 14, No. 4, p. 268-287. Watson, A., Buchanan, J., Campbell, A & Briggs, C 2003, Fragmented Futures: New Challenges in Working Life, The Federation Press, Sydney. Read More