ABSTRACT
Cultural influences are inextricably woven into people’s career development. The meanings of career and career development, people’s career issues, and career counselling must be understood through the historical and cultural location of these constructions (Young and Collin, 2004). Rather than controlling for culture as a “nuisance variable” (Stead, 2004, p. 389) or artificially categorising people according to group membership, culture must be understood through the meanings constructed across cultures and across relationship contexts. A key implication is that theorists, researchers and career practitioners need to “infuse their work with cultural issues more than they have to date” (p. 390). Arthur and Collins (2005) have developed a conceptual model of multicultural counselling based on the premise that culture needs to be located centrally in the principles and practices of counselling with all clients. “Culture-infused counselling … is the conscious and purposeful infusion of cultural awareness and sensitivity into all aspects of the counselling process and all other roles assumed by the counsellor….” (p. 16).
