ABSTRACT
Increased attention has been given to the specific career needs of African Americans during the last 10 years. However, although the attention has been long overdue, traditional career-counseling theories continue to limit their consideration of the full range of vocational behaviors, choices, and decisions among African Americans. As the largest racial and ethnic minority group in the United States to date, African Americans continue to face a number of vocational problems including disproportionately high rates of underemployment, unemployment, poverty, and educational deficits. These problems appear to be persistent and evoke even more concern as we head into the 21st century (Hoyt, 1989; Okacha, 1994). Career-counseling theories should allow practitioners to understand, predict, ameliorate, and perhaps prevent many of these vocational problems. Unfortunately, much of the theoretical development in the vocational literature on African Americans appears to be limited and in its infancy. Thus, there appear to be numerous opportunities for future directions.
