Basia McDougall MPhil.pdf - OpenAIR @ RGU - Robert Gordon ...

objective career – that which is perceived through the eyes of society. Using the metaphorabove, what is visible mirrors the traditional discourse of ‘career’ in our culture. Subjectivecareers are more difficult to explore and undoubtedly affected by expectations of objectivecareers. Objective careers accommodate an externally visible break in paid work - such asduring maternity leave and or subsequent career break - as a complete stop to working life.The two periods of paid work and career break are described as distinct and not overlappingin any way, shape or form. This idea is supported by Goffman (1961) who described careeras both an objective phenomenon and a subjective process:Traditionally the term career has been reserved for those who expect to enjoy riseslaid out within a respectable profession. The term is coming to be used, however, in abroadened sense to refer to any social strand of a person’s course through life . . .The concept of career, then, allows one to move back and forth between thepersonal and the public, between the self and its significant society. (Goffman 1961p.127)To a degree, this bears a similarity with Wengraf’s (2007) work. His biographic narrativeanalysis results in a separation of ‘lived life’ and ‘told life’ stories. One life ‘strand’ is visibleand public; the other personal, reflecting the individual’s perception of events. Many of thetheories and models considered below do not always make clear whether an objective orsubjective career perspective is considered. The use of narrative analysis in the currentresearch specifically privileges the subjective, personal reflections of career, whilst drawingcomparisons with organisational understanding and expectations – an objective perspective.A different approach is put forward by Nicholson and West (1989) who discuss theappropriateness of a journey metaphor for career. This is based on the semantic root of theword – carriageway’ or ‘road’. This metaphor holds some initial appeal but as the authorspoint out: it inclines one to view the journey as an attribute of the traveller rather than thecompulsive shape of the terrain” (p. 181). The question of agency is one which will bereturned to again later in this chapter in section 2.4. With regards a definition of career,Super (1980) an early, leading career theorist, suggests a career is: “a sequence of positionsheld during the course of a lifetime.” Whilst there is no inference that these positions arepaid, there is an implied suggestion of on-going linearity through the use of the word‘sequence’. The previous chapter however, describes women who at times workedvoluntarily, for example as careers or work part-time, stepping on and off a ‘career ladder’.This is not reflected in Super’s (1980) definition. Arthur and Rousseau (1996) offer a lessvalue based definition, therefore moving away from an arguably organisational notion ofcareer linearity, moving the definition away from assumed goals of status and promotion bystating simply that a career is: “the unfolding sequence of a person’s work experience over34