Super's Theory

Erin E. Hardin & Femina P. Varghese

Beginning with the first documented vocational counseling attempts of Frank Parsons in 1909, vocational counseling and research focused for nearly half a century on vocational choice—not on how or why one made a particular vocational decision, but rather on what that decision was. Donald Super's theory of Supers Theory vocational development was therefore unique in being one of the first attempts to explain the process underlying vocational choice and to take a developmental perspective by looking at vocational development across the life span. In developing his theory, Super drew on the earlier work of Eli Ginzberg, Sol Ginsburg, Sidney Axelrad, and John Herma, who presented a model of vocational choice as part of a developmental process and incorporated Charlotte Beuheler's concept of life stages. Therefore, at the core of Super's theory has always existed the idea of five predictable stages of vocational development that occur as part of a continuous ...

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