An Assessment of the Job Relevance of the National Board for Certified Counselors Examination

The authors discuss the results of a study designed to assess nationally certified counselors' perceptions of the relevance of elements of the National Board for Certified Counselors examination to their work as counselors. Support for the validity and appropriateness of the examination in regard to perceived relevance and lack of differentiation on the basis of respondent characteristics were found.     

Menopause: Salient Issues for Counselors

Counselors are in ideal positions to help change attitudes toward viewing menopause as a time of positive change, rather than a time of psychological distress. Following definitions and a review of historical, sociological, psychological, and attitudinal factors that account for negative responses associated with menopause, recommendations for counselor interventions are proposed.     

One Counselor's Intervention in the Aftermath of a Middle School Student's Suicide: A Case Study

The authors discuss the application of Gestalt theory as a means of dealing with the surviving classmates of a student who committed suicide.     

A LONGITUDINAL INVESTIGATION OF INTEREST CONGRUENCE AND GENDER CONCENTRATION AS PREDICTORS OF JOB SATISFACTION

Based on a rationale derived from discrepancy theories of job satisfaction, person-environment congruence was examined for its prediction of job satisfaction among college graduates over a 7-year period. Data were from university records and a survey of 253 graduates who were employed full time. Congruence of the students'college majors and their jobs predicted their subsequent job satisfaction regardless of whether this congruence was a perceptual or a more objective measure, while congruence between the interests the participants expressed on an interest inventory (the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory) during their freshman orientation did not. A three-way interaction of gender, gender concentration of Occupation, and interest congruence predicting job satisfaction was hypothesized. Although a three-way interaction was significant, it was not as predicted. Potential explanations involving the nature of decisions involving college majors and jobs and the stage of career development of participants are discussed.     

Family Functioning of Male Alcoholics and Their Female Partners during Periods of Drinking and Abstinence

Family functioning of 20 alcoholic male veterans and their female partners was assessed in relation to drinking (wet) and abstinent (dry) intervals. Repeated measures analyses performed on the McMaster Family Assessment Device (FAD) indicated that on all 7 scales of the FAD, alcoholics and their mates perceived family functioning to be better during dry than wet periods. In contrast to their alcoholic mates, female partners gave healthier ratings to all FAD scales except Roles in the dry condition and Affective Involvement in the wet condition. According to published cutoff scores for healthy and unhealthy family functioning, alcoholics as a group viewed their wet and dry family functioning as unhealthy, although the female group regarded the family's dry Problem Solving and Behavioral Control as healthy. These findings suggest that the family functioning of alcohol-involved couples is biphasic, oscillating between drinking and abstinent periods.     

Toward a Woman-Centered Perspective of Careers: The Quilt Metaphor

The author proposes the artist and her quilt as a metaphor for the woman and her career. She suggests that quilts and quilting provide a woman-centered context to help counselors gain an understanding of women's lives and work.     

A model for counselor-student-teacher involvement

School counselors need to adopt some new supplementary roles in order to get more involved in the classroom learning situation. The Inquiry Role Approach (IRA) offers such a program for counselor involvement. The IRA establishes teams of students who work with the counselor and the teacher in the regular classroom. Individual referrals to the counselor are accepted as part of the classroom routine. Preliminary evaluation of the program suggests that certain attitudes and social skills are enhanced, and the counselors benefit by dealing directly with more students in a classroom situation.     

Feminist Second Thoughts About Free Agency

This essay suggests that common themes in recent feminist ethical thought can dislodge the guiding assumptions of traditional theories of free agency and thereby foster an account of freedom which might be more fruitful for feminist discussion of moral and political agency. The essay proposes constructing that account around a condition ofnormative-competence. It argues that this view permits insight into why women's labor of reclaiming and augmenting their agency is both difficult and possible in a sexist society.     

SELF-REPORTED ASSERTIVE JOB-SEEKING BEHAVIORS OF MINIMALLY EDUCATED JOB HUNTERS

Little research attention has focused on the job-search behavior of minimally educated workers. The primary objective of the studies reported was to examine the relationship of self-reported assertive job-hunting behavior to acquisition of employment among minimally educated workers. The results of three studies provide: (a) construct validity evidence for the Assertive Job-Hunting Survey (AJHS; Becker, 1980), (b) evidence for construct similarity across minimally educated job seeker and college student populations, (c) evidence of a significant relationship between the AJHS and both subjective and objective job acquisition criteria in postdictive and predictive research designs, and (d) evidence that the AJHS, a measure of a non-cognitive variable, can make a unique contribution to the prediction of job acquisition beyond cognitive ability measures.