166 The Professional Counselor | Volume 14, Issue 2 absence of research that attempts to acknowledge the ways race and racism influence career choices among people who are not White. What follows is a review of the research reporting on influencing factors of Black people who choose to enter helping professions such as social work, family and consumer sciences, and nursing, which can potentially offer insights about why some Black people might choose to become professional counselors. Also included is research about how race influences the career counseling process for Black students and new professionals as they seek to identify viable career options. Creative Nursing published an article in 2008 (Anonymous, 2008) that provided readers with firsthand accounts of why a group of over 20 nurses chose to enter that profession. They overwhelmingly cited being called to the profession, suggesting that their career choice went beyond typical considerations such as financial stability or convenience. Social work researchers have similarly investigated this topic and have reported that Black social workers most frequently chose the profession because they wanted opportunities to work with people (Gockel, 1966) or had the desire to open a private practice (Butler & Butler, 1990). In their study of 120 social workers, Bowie and Hancock (2000) reported that the social workers chose gaining more social work education in order to advance their careers and learning new social work skills as among the most important reasons to enroll in graduate-level social work courses. Similarly, Burdette-Williamson and O’Neal (1998) reported undergraduates who chose family and consumer sciences as a major were most motivated by influential people, including but not limited to college advisors, parents, and/or college friends. These motivating factors to join helping professions align with Branch’s (2018) dissertation that reported on Black men’s reasons for becoming counselors. Branch cited prior experiences with therapy and Black male counseling mentors as reasons why Black men chose their career path leading to counseling. Other researchers have centered Black people in the context of career development. The cultural formulation approach with Black clients (Byars-Winston, 2010; Byars-Winston & Fouad, 2006; Fouad & Byars-Winston, 2005) focuses on racial differences in variables related to career choice. Fouad and Byars-Winston (2005) reported differences among racial/ethnic groups in perceptions of career opportunities and barriers to those opportunities; they concluded that the career aspirations of Black and other people of color are similar, but their dreams differ by racial groups. Byars-Winston (2010) recommended the cultural formulation approach in career counseling with Black clients as a descriptive guide to inform counselors’ consideration, documentation, and influence of culture in the counseling relationship by integrating four cultural formulation dimensions (i.e., self and cultural identity, self and cultural conceptions of career problems, self in context, and cultural dynamics in counseling relationships) with the three functions of Black cultural identity (i.e., bonding, buffering, and bridging). Research about career development among Black students in educational settings (pre-K through higher education) and interventions support using the cultural formulation approach. Rollins and Valdez (2006) sampled 85 Black high school students and found that students who experienced a higher degree of racism reported significantly higher career decision-making self-efficacy (i.e., belief in one’s ability to make a good career decision) but not career task self-efficacy (i.e., belief in one’s ability to successfully complete a career-related task). Rollins and Valdez found that higher ethnic identity achievement, parental socioeconomic status, and being female were related to higher levels of career self-efficacy. Similarly, Duffy and Klingamen (2009) reported in a study of 2,300 racially diverse first-year college students a series of statistically significant, positive correlations between higher levels of ethnic identity achievement and career decidedness. Ethnic identity was found to play little, if any, role in the career development progress of White students. However, for Black
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