TPC-Journal-V4-Issue4

The Professional Counselor \Volume 4, Issue 4 297 and most of them worked in the Northeast. This factor may bias the results in terms of geographic region and context due to unique family or social norms. Areas for Future Research Areas for future research can be found in the Theory & Research action items suggested in this study. First, experts recommended “expand[ing] the vision of theory and research in the field of career development to include those who have been typically left out of the career development narrative.” This suggestion is an echo of previous authors’ assertions that career development theories are biased toward more privileged populations (Gysbers, Heppner, & Johnston, 2003). Models such as Blustein’s (2006) or Byars-Winston and Fouad’s (2006) might be considered efforts on this front, and researching such models is one possible method of acting on this suggestion. These models call for career counselors to place in the fore issues of context and culture, rather than considering culture an afterthought to traditional career counseling methods. Second, experts suggested that “new and effective interventions should be developed in order to increase critical consciousness and skill development among marginalized clients.” Increasing critical consciousness is a particular suggestion that invokes the need to raise clients’ awareness of their sociopolitical position in society (Freire, 1970; Martín-Baró, 1991, 1994), and therefore is a call to develop interventions which attend to clients’ lived experiences of marginalization and discrimination. Research methods such as participatory action research (PAR; Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007; Kidd & Kral, 2005) may be particularly well-suited for such efforts, given this method’s combination of intervention and action in collaboration with clients. PAR is different from traditional research in that research participants take part in developing research questions, collecting data, analyzing data and using the results to make substantive changes in their context. For example, in a community where African American unemployment is very high (Levine, 2012), career counselors or researchers could pursue such individuals in a practice of investigation that engages them in the research process. Such a study might begin by facilitating a discussion around a question such as, “What questions should we be asking to figure out how to improve your chances for employability in this community?” A researcher might form concrete research questions to shape the study, but community members would drive the focus. All those involved would then collect data, analyze it and see what could be done with the answers to effect change. Finally, experts suggested that “new delivery models will need to be developed in order to make up for a shortage of career development professionals.” This is a very pragmatic suggestion that may be necessary to fulfill the needs of clients in both this and any future economic crises. As such, researchers, scholars and professional counseling organizations should consider methods for collaboration in service of meeting this call. Although there has been recent collaboration in the counseling profession on this front (Hansen, 2000), there remains much work to be done. In addition to collecting experts’ suggestions, further research should be carried out that captures the voices and experiences of traditionally marginalized populations. Although asking experts about such topics provided an efficient and systematic method of inquiry within a fluid and changing context, future researchers should collect data directly from these populations. Conflict of Interest and Funding Disclosure The authors reported no conflict of interest or funding contributions for the development of this manuscript.