Autoethnography in Vocational Psychology: Wearing Your Class on Your Sleeve

Abstract

This paper addresses reflective practice in research and practice and takes the issue of consciousness of social class in vocational psychology as a working example. It is argued that the discipline's appreciation of social class can be advanced through application of the qualitative research method autoethnography. Excerpts from an autoethnographic study are used to explore the method's potential. This reflexive research method is presented as a potential vehicle to improve vocational psychologists' own class consciousness, and to concomitantly enhance their capacity to grasp social class within their own spheres of research and practice. It is recommended that autoethnography be used for research, training, and professional development for vocational psychologists. addressing social class will ultimately require the delivery of career development services directed at socio-economic need and will depend upon psychological practices that are informed by research and theories sensitive to social class. Accordingly, scholars and practitioners-and their teachers and supervisors-will require various theoretical and professional means by which to take up that challenge in an appropriately informed manner.We approach this challenge by presenting a qualitative research method which can be used by vocational psychologists to raise awareness of their own social class phenomenology and to explore how they can integrate class-related meaning into reflexive research. In doing so, we present another path by which vocational psychologists may pursue the notion of critical consciousness Blustein, McWhirter, & Perry, 2005;Diemer & Blustein, 2006). Objectification of Social ClassPsychology, as a social science and a profession, has developed sophisticated systems of education, training, supervision, credentialing, and registration. Take for example the scientist-practitioner model, which embodies the notions of dispassionate objectivity, technical proficiency, and professionalism. Although we flexibly adhere to the positivist tradition and ideals of the scientist-practitioner approach in our various professional, supervisory, managerial, and academic roles, we assert that psychology's scientific and professional systems and discourses require careful consideration with respect to class. With Following the arguments of other scholars (e.g., Blustein, 2001;Lott, 2002;Richardson, 2000;Roberts, 2005) we suspect that the enculturation of vocational psychologists in the traditional positivist paradigm may inadvertently limit their capacity to fully appreciate and operationalize a sensitive view of class in research, theory, and practice.The enculturation of dispassionate objectivity concomitant with positivism may well serve the development of a scientific professional, but it may concomitantly suppress or limit a professional's understanding and expression of his or her own personal background in terms of social class. We are not suggesting that individuals who identify with the positivist tradition are necessarily dismissive...

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