African-American women's experiences of racist and sexist events and their relation to the career choice process [electronic resource]
說明
137 p
附註
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 71-11, Section: A, page:
Adviser: Linda M. Subich
Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Akron, 2010
This current research studied the career development process of African American women utilizing Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory (1977). The sample included 108 African American women who ranged in age from 18 to 63 with a mean age of 25 years old. The study examined the Social Cognitive variables of learning experiences in the form of racist and sexist events (recent and lifetime) in relation to career decision-making self-efficacy and outcome expectancies and career indecision. Previous research indicated a significant inverse relationship between career decision-making self-efficacy and career indecision, but in this study found varying results depending upon whether age was not controlled or controlled. When age was not controlled, the relationship between career decision-making self-efficacy and indecision was not significant; yet when age was controlled a significant inverse relationship was found. Initially, it was hypothesized that African American women's racist experiences (recent and lifetime) would have significant inverse relationships with career decision-making self-efficacy, yet only their lifetime racist events had a significant inverse relationship when age was not controlled; both were non-significant when age was controlled. In addition, African American women's sexist events (recent and lifetime) were expected to have a significant inverse relationship with career decision-making self-efficacy, but this was not supported, regardless of not controlling or controlling for age. Further, this study found that if age is not controlled, the African American women's appraisal of their racist events as stressful was significantly inversely related to career decision-making self-efficacy, but when age is controlled, no relation was found. In addition, racist and sexist experiences did not predict career decision-making self-efficacy and outcome expectancies for African American women. Although not hypothesized, an exploratory analysis showed sexist events (recent and lifetime) predicted career indecision. Future research on the impact of sexism on African American women's career development process was suggested to be beneficial to decrease their overall career indecision
