Gottfredson’s Theory of Circumscription and Compromise

The theory of circumscription and compromise (Gottfredson, 1981) proposes that our career ideas spring from our early experiences, and our perception of power and roles. As a result, this theory is less about how to assist a client, but more useful for helping the client understand what has shaped their personal views of career, particularly from a cultural, gender, national, or age-based lens. This theory is one of a handful exploring cultural stereotypes, limitations, and advantages.

Created for working with young people - where, at each stage/age, we rule out jobs through a process called circumscription, we see a mismatch between those eliminated roles and how we see ourselves (Jordan, 2020) - there are four age bands:

• Stage 1, Ages 3 to 5: "Young people see jobs as held by grown-ups" (Jordan, 2020), and "Increasing recognition of one' s small size relative to adults; make simplistic categorisations of strong versus weak" (Barnes, 2019)
• Stage 2, Ages 6 to 8: "Young people become aware of stereotypical gender roles and begin having ideas about their own careers" (Jordan, 2020), and "Increasing recognition of sex and gender differences; self-selecting of same-sex playmates; dichotomising work as 'women's work' and 'men's work'" (Barnes, 2019)
• Stage 3, Ages 9 to 13: "Young people learn how jobs vary in status, and dismiss some jobs because they don’t see themselves working in these roles" (Jordan, 2020), and "Increasing recognition of the social status (real and perceived) that is associated with work role; male-dominated careers tend to have greater status variability whereas female dominated careers have less; concept of tolerable-level boundary: minimum perceived status an individual can tolerate in a career (lower boundary), balanced with the highest perceived status that individual has potential to achieve (upper boundary)" (Barnes, 2019)
• Stage 4, Ages 14 and over: "Young people think about how their interests, abilities and values match with various jobs" (Jordan, 2020), and "Increasing recognition of the tension between idealistic goals and realistic ones; at younger end of the spectrum, closer to age 14, adolescents are expected to make this distinction without the requisite experience; begin to circumscribe career possibilities based on perception of self, and how that self would be in a career" (Barnes, 2019).

As already mentioned, one component of this theory is Circumscription. This is the process of defining our interests, of eliminating possibilities; 'cutting out' some careers because they don't match our self-concept which has been derived/compared from/to our perception of the world of work (Barnes, 2019).

The second key component of this theory is that of Compromise. Once we have eliminated the careers we do not see a fit with, we can make career decisions based on what remains. While this is not necessarily a negative process, it can be where choices are highly gendered, or restricted by religion or family constraints. We might find our career choices may be overly circumscribed, which is where the reality check provided by a career practitioner can significant value (Barnes, 2019). 

The third key component is that of Self-creation. This is the idea that we create ourselves through the interaction between our heredity and our environment. The choice in work is either finding a career which may fulfill our self-concept, or in satisficing: selecting the 'least poor'... which not provide good fit (Barnes, 2019).

Beginning the process by assessing where the client fits on the developmental model (NB: ages are guides), there are four strategies practitioners can use to work with clients to achieve "appropriate and accurate circumscription" (Barnes, 2019; Gottfredson, 2005):

1. Optimising learning: "counselors implement this intervention with clients by assisting in reduction of task complexity (e.g. 'what are the basic features of the task at hand?') and by accommodating cognitive 'diversity' (i. e. using language and concepts appropriate to the client's level of social and cognitive development)" (Barnes, 2019)
2. Optimising experience: "Clients often enter the [career development] relationship having a shallow pool of resources available to them, including limited access to key experiences. This includes access to individuals with broad experiences as well". Career practice "supports clients as they experience new things that broaden their perspective of self and world of work" (Barnes, 2019)
3. Optimising self-insight: "self-knowledge [...] goes beyond the common conception of interests, values and skills". Practitioners "play a key role in facilitating clients' depth of understanding of self, and ultimately how the self can exist in the world of work" (Barnes, 2019)
4. Optimising self-investment: practitioners "can assist clients in directing finite personal resources by assessing the likelihood that certain behaviors will bear fruit. Not all effort will be equally rewarded and not all paths lead to success". Practitioners "can facilitate self-investment by realistically determining pathways that have a higher likelihood of career and personal success" (Barnes, 2019).

This is a somewhat complex model, but could provide structure to challenge any rigidity encountered with young people who appear to see roles in ways that are unnecessarily gendered, cultural, or age-defined. 

Sam

References:

Barnes, E. (2019, May 19). Module 1: Career Theories. In Integrating Career Focused Counseling [course]. https://careerfocusedcounselingproject.wordpress.com/2019/05/19/module-1-career-theories/

Gottfredson, L. S. (2005). Chapter 4: Applying Gottfredson’s Theory of Circumscription and Compromise in Career Guidance and Counseling. In S. D. Brown & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Career development and counseling: Putting theory and research to work (pp. 71-100). John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Gottfredson, L. S. (1981). Circumscription and compromise: A developmental theory of occupational aspirations. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 28(6), 545-579. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.28.6.545

Jordan, K. (2020, August 14). Spotlight on Gottfredson’s career theory. Careers New Zealand. https://www.careers.govt.nz/articles/spotlight-on-gottfredsons-career-theory/

Truyens, M. (2019). Theory of Self-creation, Circumscription and Compromise: Linda Gottfredson 1981. Career Marcr. https://marcr.net/marcr-for-career-professionals/career-theory/career-theories-and-theorists/theory-of-circumscription-and-compromise-linda-gottfredson/