Career Assessment of Ethnic Minority Women

Abstract

The authors suggest that the career assessment of ethnic minority women presents some special challenges for the career counselor. We contend that multicultural counseling should become a part of the career counseling process. The authors present a Career Counseling Decision Tree, a Multicultural Career Counseling Checklist for Counselors and a Career Checklist for Clients. It is hoped that these assessment instruments will facilitate the career assessment of ethnic minority women.

Issues in the Use of Ability and Interest Measures with Women

“…However, there is still almost no attention to those people who are both women and representatives of racial and/or ethnic minority groups. Bingham and Ward (in press) and Ward and Bingham (1993) represent the first sustained attention to these groups. Thus, the relevance of the issues discussed in this article to ethnic minority women may in some cases vary because of the effects of ethnicity on test results or relevance.…”

Career Assessment With Latinos/Hispanics

“…Culturally appropriate goals are ultimately determined by the client. Fouad and Bingham's model extends that of Ward and Bingham's (1993;Bingham & Ward, 1994), explicitly incorporating cultural variables at each step of career counseling. The model includes recognition of external barriers that affect racial/ethnic minority clients, which is, as indicated earlier, important because those barriers affect their career decisions.…”

“…This is a critical step in the process and relies on the client and the client-counselor relationship to assess how cultural variables influence career decisions. Techniques to help assess cultural impact may include pictorial representations, genograms, interviews, or checklists (Ward & Bingham, 1993). Counselors need to remember that not all clients will be able, or willing, to discuss how their culture affects their career issues.…”

Theories in Cross-Cultural Contexts

“…Using culture as a central theme, Fouad and Bingham (1995) formulated this seven-step model. This was based upon the original work done by Ward and Bingham (1993), which focused on a model for minor-ity culture women. The foundation of this theory is based upon focusing on cultural factors and variables such as racial identity development, discrimination, family role expectations, gender role expectations and various other worldview dimensions.…”