INTRODUCTION

While psychologists say that “people make careers,” sociologists claim that “careers make people” and the career literature shows a dearth of cross-referencing between these two frames of reference (Van Maanen, 1977:8).

Indeed, theory and research on careers have developed along two dominant, independent and sometimes conflicting streams of thought over the last fifty years. As discussed by Gysbers (1984), these may be characterized as (1) primarily psychological in nature (e.g., self-development within a career, career motivation, career orientation) and (2) primarily sociological in nature (e.g., career paths and occupational streams, career stages within organizations, the nature of various occupations in society).

It has also been observed that traditional epistemologies that place stock in observable, structural, and measurable social facts are increasingly set in contrast to cognitive (often phenomenological) views that, focusing on language, sense making and symbolic processes, proceed from a premise that reality is largely socially constructed (Berger and Luckmann, 1966; Pfeffer, 1981:1–52). Examining the social reality of careers may in fact provide an opportunity to achieve some degree of integration between these contrasting perspectives.

As articulated in this volume by Barley (Chapter 3) on the Chicago School of Sociology, careers link individuals to the social structure by fusing the objective and the subjective, the observable facts and the individuals' interpretation of their experience. The dialectical nature of career dynamics calls for an epistemological framework that can address this ontological duality in a comprehensive manner. It is suggested here that the concept of culture may actually provide such a framework.