Stage theory spotlight: Donald Super

Speaking of stage theories, an important one to remember is Donald Super's Career Development Theory.

There are a couple lists that you should associate with Super: his list of career development stages, and his list of life spaces. Super was known for his "life-span, life-space" framework. Life-spaces refer to social roles that we may occupy over time. Super identified six: child, student, leisurite, citizen, worker, and homemaker.

Within the life-span, Super identified five developmental stages, each with tasks we must accomplish to progress to subsequent stages. The stages are: growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance, and decline. 

STOP. Before you potentially research each of these five stages and life-spaces in a night-caffeine-fueled-frenzy, take a look at them. I bet you can make an educated guess about the roles associated with each space and stage just by their title and their contrast to the other spaces/stages around them. 

For instance, the second stage, exploration, typically occurs in early adulthood. During this stage, the individual experiments with their interests and starts figuring out what they might want to pursue as a career. Pausing for a sec and considering this stage in the context of the others, I bet you figured out at least part of that information. If you want to do a deep dive into each stage, go for it. But I recommend you distill what you learn into ONE OR TWO WORDS FOR EACH STAGE AND SPACE. This will be easier to remember, and you'll understand the basic framework come exam day.

Bonus points: A popular intervention associated with Super is the Career Rainbow. How do life spaces and life stages fit into the rainbow?

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