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Article Excerpt
During the past 30 years, the issues of domestic violence and battered women have received increasing attention both nationally and globally through media campaigns, legislation initiatives, and research conducted in disciplines such as criminal justice, social science, and women's studies (Ellseberg, Caldera, Herrera, Winkvist, & Kullgren, 1999; Fawcett, Heise, Isita-Espejel, & Pick, 1999; Gelles, 1997; Gondolf & Fisher, 1988; Horne, 1999; Kozu, 1999; P. T. McWhirter, 1999; Walker, 1999). The existing literature on the consequences of domestic violence has informed practice by describing the emergency safety and personal counseling needs of battered women, as well as best practices for the provision of mental health and advocacy services in shelters, hospitals, legal systems, and community centers (Browne, 1993; Buzawa & Buzawa, 1996; Sullivan & Bybee, 1999; Weisz, Tolman, & Bennett, 1998). Although this literature base has grown tremendously in the past decade, little attention has been given to the longer term impact of domestic violence on battered women's career development and the role of career counseling and intervention in assisting women with longer term recovery. The purpose of this article is to highlight the effects of domestic violence on women's vocational and educational well-being. Constructs and tenets of social cognitive career theory (SCCT; Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994) are described and applied to the ecology (i.e., sociocultural context) of battered women's experiences. Finally, we provide a framework for empowering battered women and promoting their career development and attainment using SCCT.
DEFINITIONS
For the purpose of this article, we define battered women as those who are or have been targets of domestic violence. Domestic violence has been characterized with respect to four dimensions of abuse: emotional, physical, sexual, and economic (Womenspace, 1998), and we attend to each of these dimensions in our discussion of social cognitive constructs, focusing more specifically on economic abuse. The terms vocational and career are used interchangeably throughout the article.
BATTERED WOMEN AND CAREER COUNSELING
A comprehensive review of four decades of research yielded only three articles that discussed guidelines and strategies for career counseling with battered women (Bowen, 1982; Gianakos, 1999; Ibrahim & Herr, 1987) and one article outlining battered women's perceived career barriers and career decision-making self-efficacy (Brown, Reedy, Fountain, Johnson, & Dichiser, 2000). Many social service agencies that serve battered women provide valuable information about employment opportunities, job training, and, less frequently, vocational programs. This information is important because most battered women need immediate financial resources after leaving an abusive partner.
Although such resources often assist a battered woman to permanently leave a dangerous domestic situation, they do not restore longer term career and educational opportunities to battered women (Walsh & Osipow, 1994). Research shows that these longer term opportunities may be essential for women to provide for their family's needs without their abuser's contributions, to achieve economic independence, and ultimately to leave abusive situations permanently (Strube, 1988; Sullivan & Bybee, 1999). A short-term employment focus also ignores the developmental nature of career and educational interests and pursuits, as well as the complex array of barriers that battered women face long after leaving an abusive relationship. Most important, the lack of attention to the effects of domestic violence on career development ignores the complex interrelationships between women's intimate partnerships and career interests and achievements. Given the critical importance of economic stability in allowing a woman to achieve and maintain a minimal standard of living and to leave an abusive situation permanently, attention to battered women's educational and career experiences, skills, interests, and goals is warranted.
SCCT
SCCT (Lent et al., 1994) provides a useful framework for understanding the effects of domestic violence on battered women's career-related experiences and behaviors. SCCT is a specific application of Bandura's (1986) social cognitive theory to the process of career and educational interest formation, the identification of career and educational choices, and performance and persistence in career pursuits. SCCT integrates the role of environmental influences on the development and pursuit of vocational and educational interests, choices, and performance and has been identified as useful in understanding and responding to the career development concerns of groups dealing with oppression, such as African American women (Hackett & Byars, 1996), people who are gay or lesbian (Morrow, Gore, & Campbell, 1996), and women who have been incarcerated (Chartrand & Rose, 1996). SCCT highlights the interactive roles of person, environmental, and behavioral variables that contribute to the formation of career and academic interests and the translation of these interests into goals, actions, and attainments. Embedded in this model is the assumption that people are active agents in their environments.
The three person variables thought to be most influential in regulating career-related behavior are self-efficacy expectations (belief in one's ability to perform specific behaviors), outcome expectations (beliefs about the likely consequences of performing specific behaviors), and personal goals (intentions to act in order to achieve a particular end state; Lent et al., 1994). Three sets of influences are believed to indirectly influence interest formation and translation of interests into goals and achievements: (a) background and proximal contextual influences, including differential opportunities for task and role model exposure, support for and barriers to engaging in particular activities, and cultural and gender role socialization processes; (b) person inputs such as socioeconomic status, gender, ethnicity, and innate abilities; and (c) learning experiences. These influences are thought to affect interest formation through their direct influences on self-efficacy expectations, outcome expectations, and personal goals (Lent et al., 1994). For a more in-depth look at SCCT, we refer the reader to Lent et al.'s (1994) monograph. In the following sections, we examine constructs central to SCCT in relation to the known characteristics and consequences of domestic violence.
Self-Efficacy Expectations
According to Bandura (1986), self-efficacy expectations influence the likelihood that an individual will attempt a behavior and persist in attempting that behavior in the face of difficulty. Self-efficacy expectations develop through performance accomplishments, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and physiological states, with performance accomplishments thought to be the most influential of these sources. The ecological context within which an individual functions influences the type and availability of these sources of self-efficacy.
For women living in domestic violence situations, learning experiences that enhance self-efficacy expectations may be limited. Perpetrators of domestic violence often isolate women in such a way that they become "hostages" in their own homes, cut off from their communities (Lobel, 1986; Morrow & Hawxhurst, 1989; Rosewater, 1993; Zambrano, 1985). As a result, opportunities to attempt and succeed at many educational and career-related tasks might be severely restricted or sabotaged. Likewise, physical isolation and financial limitations may reduce exposure to role models or peers engaged in educational and career pursuits. The impact...
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