Abstract

The first part of this article places in its proper context previous research work conducted in vocational development during adult life; this brief overview serves as a yardstick to appraise the lack of importance and general directions given in the literature to this period of life. The authors argue that continuing education curricula would benefit immensely from greater interest and knowledge derived from the vocational aspects of adults. The second part of this paper presents a model of adulthood vocational development. The model assumes that career development is a life-span process that goes through various structural periods which are either preceded or followed by transition cycles. As vocational development unfolds throughout nine identified stages, adults are usually action-oriented during their structural periods and question-oriented during their transition periods. This constant vocational self-evaluation is the determining force that will give rise to drastic career changes, retrogradation, etc. As each of the nine vocational development periods has distinct characteristics, it becomes possible not only to anticipate them but also to relate them to a particular adult individual's development stage.