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Beyond Pioneering: An Introduction to the Special Issue on the Vocational Issues of Lesbian Women and Gay Men
JOURNAL OF VOCATIONAL BEHAVIOR ARTICLE NO.
48, 119–124 (1996)
0012
Beyond Pioneering: An Introduction to the Special Issue on the Vocational Issues of Lesbian Women and Gay Men JAMES M. CROTEAU Western Michigan University AND
KATHLEEN J. BIESCHKE The Pennsylvania State University The existing career literature on the concerns of lesbian and gay people has served the crucial function of defining lesbian and gay people as a distinct nonethnic cultural group (Elliot, 1993) facing discrimination and having unique work-related concerns. Most existing literature has focused on providing suggestions for counselors in working with this population. Thus, this special issue makes a unique contribution by focusing on building theoretical or empirical understandings of the vocational psychology of lesbian women and gay men. We discuss the development and content of the special issue. Next, we reflect on the relative lack of diversity of peoples with a minority sexual orientation discussed in the issue. We conclude with a discussion on how this special issue can help move the vocational literature in this area ‘‘beyond pioneering’’ and toward the systematic building of theoretical and empirical knowledge. q 1996 Academic Press, Inc.
The Journal of Vocational Behavior has a well-documented history of leadership in publishing on issues related to the career development of women and racial or ethnic minorities as noted by Harmon (1991). The special issues on sexual harassment (Tinsley & Stockdale, 1993) and racial identity (Tinsley, 1994) are examples of the journal’s efforts at examining the vocational issues of oppressed or marginalized groups of people. This special issue on lesbian, gay, and bisexual individual’s vocational concerns continues those efforts. The psychological study of lesbian and gay issues has undergone tremendous changes in the last 25 years. Prior to this quarter century, most psychological literature focused on ‘‘presumed pathological aspects’’ of Address correspondence and reprint requests to: James M. Croteau, Ph.D., CECP Dept., 3102 Sangren Hall, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5195. 119 0001-8791/96 $18.00 Copyright q 1996 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
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homosexuality (Garnets & Kimmel, 1990, p. 144; Morin & Rothblum, 1991). A shift in perspective occurred in the 1970s and 1980s. Both social consciousness and professional activism drew attention to the data emerging from well-designed empirical studies that indicated that homosexuality was not associated with mental illness. The American Psychological Association and other social science and mental health professional associations took public positions that lesbian and gay orientations were normal variants of human sexuality (Morin & Rothblum, 1991). An affirmative perspective for studying gay and lesbian issues emerged as dominant and the subject of inquiry shifted. Attitudes toward lesbian women and gay men and the ‘‘characteristics and psychosocial issues’’ of lesbian women and gay men became the central areas of psychological study (Garnets & Kimmel, 1990, p. 144). Career concerns are an important psychosocial issue in the lives of lesbian women and gay men. A small number of scholarly articles on this topic began to emerge in the 1970s and 1980s (see Elliot, 1993). The first half of the 1990s has seen the scholarly literature in this area more than double, but still we were able to identify only 28 published scholarly works in our comprehensive review of the literature (Belz, 1993; Canon, 1973; Chung, 1995; Chung & Harmon, 1994; Croteau & Hedstrom, 1993; Croteau & Lark, 1995; Croteau & Thiel, 1993; Croteau & von Destinon, 1994; Diamant, 1993; Elliot, 1993; Etringer, Hillerbrand, & Hetherington, 1990; Fassinger, 1995; Griffin, 1992; Hall, 1986; Hetherington, 1992; Hetherington, Hillebrand, & Etringer, 1989; Hetherington & Orzek, 1989; Levine & Leonard, 1984; Milburn, 1993; Morgan & Brown, 1991; Olson, 1987; Orzek, 1992; Pope, 1995; Prince, 1995; Schachar & Gilbert, 1983; Schmitz, 1988; Schneider, 1987; Woods & Harbeck, 1992). This literature has served the crucial function of defining lesbian and gay people as a ‘‘non-ethnic cultural minority’’ (Elliot, 1993, p. 211) facing discrimination and having unique work-related concerns, behaviors, and needs that are deserving of scholarly attention. Most of the career literature has focused on providing guidance and suggestions for counselors in working with lesbian and gay career clients. Thus, although the literature has begun to meet the pressing needs of career practitioners, empirical study has been infrequent and theory building largely neglected. For this special issue, therefore, the focus is on building theoretical or empirical understandings of the vocational psychology of lesbian women and gay men. THE DEVELOPMENT AND CONTENT OF THE SPECIAL ISSUE
In the early fall of 1994, we disseminated a call for proposals for contributions that focused on theory building or empirical research. From the proposals received, we selected the contributions that we thought would best serve the theory and research focus of the special issue.
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The first section of this issue focuses on theory. Sociocognitive theory, Holland’s theory, and Super’s theory are discussed respectively by Morrow, Gore, and Campbell (1996); Mobley and Slaney (1996); and Dunkle (1996). These articles are unique in their examination of a single existing vocational theory for its applicability to this population. In a similar vein, the broad array of women’s career development theories and concepts are examined by Fassinger (1996) for their applicability to lesbian women. All four of these contributions offer hypotheses to guide future inquiry. The second section of this issue contains the first two articles in the literature to focus on methodological issues in the study of the vocational concerns of lesbian women and gay men. Lonborg and Phillips (1996) concentrate solely on methodological concerns and identify a variety of issues to consider in the design of future research in this area. Croteau (1996) reviews empirical research on the workplace experiences of this population, draws tentative conclusions from the existing findings, and suggests methodological improvements for future research on workplace experiences. The final section of the issue contains three much needed reports of original empirical research. Boatwright, Gilbert, Forrest, and Ketzenberger (1996) report a qualitative study of the career paths of eight lesbian women. The relations among identity, disclosure of sexual orientation, stress, and satisfaction in the work lives of lesbian women in a variety of careers are examined by Driscoll, Fassinger, and Kelley (1996). Finally, the first empirical examination of the attitudes and actions of career counselors in regard to lesbian, gay, and bisexual clients is provided by Bieschke and Matthews (1996). SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE SPECIAL ISSUE
We think it is important to make a particular note about the lack of diversity of the peoples with a minority sexual orientation who have been discussed in this issue. Much of what has been written in lesbian and gay career literature as well as in the general lesbian and gay psychological literature has focused on those who are well-educated, white, and clearly self-identified as lesbian or gay (Croteau, 1996; Garnets & Kimmel, 1990; Lonborg & Phillips, 1996; and Herek, Kimmel, Amaro, & Melton, 1991). In contrast, little has been written or studied about those with a same-sex sexual orientation who are less well educated, who are less clearly selfidentified as lesbian or gay, who are people of color, or who are bisexual. The contributors to this special issue have done a credible job in pointing out the limited diversity thus far considered and have made important suggestions for potential methods of accomplishing greater inclusion. In the end, however, the contributions here are generally long on exhortations to include greater diversity in future theoretical and empirical work and short on actually modeling that practice.
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The need for greater diversity is especially true of the study of bisexuality. We included bisexual people in our initial call for proposals for this issue and suggested that contributors discuss the applicability of their ideas or findings to bisexual people. We discouraged mere nominal inclusion of bisexual people. Despite our urging, most contributors choose to explicitly focus on lesbian women and gay men or only on lesbian women. Perhaps this decision reflects their recognition that the experiences of bisexual people are likely distinct from those of lesbian women or gay men. Regardless of the reason, we concluded that it would be misleading to include bisexuality in the title to this work when bisexuality is considered only to a relatively small extent by three of the contributors (see Bieschke & Matthews, 1996; Croteau, 1996; Lonborg & Phillips, 1996). We hope that this special issue will move the literature on the vocational psychology of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people beyond the beginning, pioneering phase in two important ways. First, the prior literature in this area has repeatedly and successfully argued for the legitimacy of scholarly work related to sexual orientation in vocational psychology. We envision the career literature in this area moving beyond that pioneering function toward a atmosphere free from the constraints of heterosexist bias (see Herek, et al., 1991), which would require that the legitimacy of inquiry into the unique vocational concerns of this population be constantly established. In introducing their work, we instructed the contributors to simply assume that inquiry concerning gay, lesbian, and bisexual people’s vocational concerns is valid and focus instead on establishing the theoretical or empirical importance of the particular issues that they were examining within this legitimate area of inquiry. We envision this special issue helping to set a tone that allows future scholarly work that same freedom to focus on the particular empirical or theoretical work at hand instead of on justifying inquiry in the vocational concerns of this population. Second, prior vocational literature on lesbian and gay concerns was pioneering in the sense of often being ‘‘first’’ (i.e., the first scholarly work that appeared on a particular vocational topic or the first scholarly work in a particular journal). As ‘‘firsts,’’ the ideas and findings in the pioneering literature were often presented as unique pieces of information not developed from, or understood in, the context of a larger body of literature. The literature has now grown and has entered the mainstream of vocational research and theory. Work in this area no longer needs to bear the burden of being pioneering ‘‘firsts.’’ We encouraged the contributors to this issue to build upon previous work wherever possible and to interpret their work in the context of the existing literature. We hope this special issue helps elaborate that context and eliminates the prior necessity of having to design each empirical or theoretical work in a vacuum. Theoretical and empirical knowledge is built only as each small piece of scholarly work is compared, contrasted, and eventually integrated with other such work. Perhaps our
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greatest hope for this issue is that it will play a small part in setting more firmly into motion that process of scientific inquiry concerning the vocational concerns of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. REFERENCES Belz, J. R. (1993). Sexual orientation as a factor in career development. Career Development Quarterly, 41, 197–200. Bieschke, K. J., & Matthews, C. (1996). Career counselor attitudes and behaviors towards gay, lesbian, bisexual clients. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 243–255. Boatwright, K. J., Gilbert, M. S., Forrest, L., & Ketzenberger, K. L. (1996). Impact of identity development upon career trajectory: Listening to the voices of lesbians. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 210–228. Canon, H. J. (1973). Gay students. Vocational Guidance Quarterly, 21, 181–185. Chung, Y. B. (1995). Career decision making of lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals. The Career Development Quarterly, 44, 178–190. Chung, Y. B., & Harmon, L. W. (1994). The career interests and aspirations of gay men: How sex-role orientation is related. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 45, 223–239. Croteau, J. M. (1996). Research on the work experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual people: An integrative review of methodology and findings. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 195–209. Croteau, J. M., & Hedstrom, S. M. (1993). Integrating commonality and difference: The key to career counseling with lesbian women and gay men. Career Development Quarterly, 41, 201–209. Croteau, J. M., & Lark, J. S. (1995). On being lesbian, gay or bisexual in student affairs: A national survey of experiences on the job. NASPA Journal, 32, 189–197. Croteau, J. M., & Thiel, M. J. (1993). Integrating sexual orientation in career counseling: Acting to end a form of the personal-career dichotomy. Career Development Quarterly, 42, 174– 179. Croteau, J. M., & von Destinon, M. (1994). A national survey of job search experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual student affairs professionals. Journal of College Student Development, 35, 40–45. Diamant, L. (1993). Homosexual issues in the workplace. Washington, DC: Tailor & Francis. Driscoll, J. M., Fassinger, R. E., & Kelley, F. A. (1996). Lesbian identity and self-disclosure in the workplace: Relation to occupational stress and satisfaction. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 229–242. Dunkle, J. H. (1996). Toward an integration of gay and lesbian identity development into Super’s life-span approach. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 149–159. Elliot, J. E. (1993). Career development with lesbian and gay clients. Career Development Quarterly, 41, 210–226. Etringer, B. D., Hillerbrand, E., & Hetherington, C. (1990). The influence of sexual orientation on career decision making: A research note. Journal of Homosexuality, 19, 103–111. Fassinger, R. E. (1995). From invisibility to integration: Lesbian identity in the workplace. The Career Development Quarterly, 44, 148–167. Fassinger, R. E. (1996). Notes from the margins: Integrating lesbian experience into the vocational psychology of women. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 160–175. Garnets, L., & Kimmel, D. (1990). Lesbian and gay male dimensions in the psychological study of human diversity. In J. D. Goodchilds (Ed.), Psychological perspectives on human diversity in America. Master lecturers psychology series (pp. 137–192). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Griffin, P. (1992). From hiding out to coming out: Empowering lesbian and gay educators. In K. M. Harbeck (Ed.), Coming out of the classroom closet (pp. 167–196). Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press.
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Hall, M. (1986). The lesbian corporate experience. Journal of Homosexuality, 12, 59–75. Harmon, L. (1991). Twenty years of the Journal of Vocational Behavior. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 39, 297–304. Herek, G. M., Kimmel, D. C., Amaro, H., & Melton, G. B. (1991). Avoiding heterosexist bias in psychological research. The American Psychologist, 46, 957–963. Hetherington, C. (1992). Life planning and career counseling with gay and lesbian students. In N. Evans & V. Wall (Eds.), Beyond Tolerance: Gays, lesbians and bisexuals on campus (pp. 131–146). Alexandria, VA: American College Personnel Association. Hetherington, C., Hillerbrand, E., & Etringer, B. (1989). Career counseling with gay men: Issues and recommendations for research. Journal of Counseling and Development, 67, 452–454. Hetherington, C., & Orzek, A. (1989). Career counseling and life planning with lesbian women: Gay, lesbian and bisexual issues in counseling [Special Issue]. Journal of Counseling & Development, 68, 52–57. Levine, M. P., & Leonard, R. (1984). Discrimination against lesbians in the work force. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 9, 700–710. Lonborg, S. D., & Phillips, J. M. (1996). Investigating the career development of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals: Methodological considerations and recommendation. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 176–194. Milburn, L. (1993). Career issues of a gay man: Case of Allan. Career Development Quarterly, 41, 195–196. Mobley, M., & Slaney, R. B. (1996). Holland’s theory: It relevance for lesbian and gay career clients. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 125–135. Morgan, K. S., & Brown, L. S. (1991). Lesbian career development, work behavior and vocational counseling. The Counseling Psychologist, 19, 273–291. Morin, S., & Rothblum, E. (1991). Removing the stigma: Fifteen years of progress. The American Psychologist, 46, 947–949. Morrow, S. L., Gore, P. A., Jr., & Campbell, B. W. (1996). The application of a sociocognitive framework to the career development of lesbians and gay men. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 136–148. Olson, M. R. (1987). A study of gay and lesbian teachers. Journal of Homosexuality, 13(4), 73– 81. Orzek, A. O. (1992). Career counseling for the gay and lesbian community. In S. H. Dworkin & F. J. Guitierrez (Eds.), Counseling gay men & lesbians: Journey to the end of the rainbow (pp. 23–34). Alexandria, VA: American Association for Counseling and Development. Pope, M. (1995). Career interventions for gay and lesbian clients: A synopsis of practice knowledge and research needs. Career Development Quarterly, 44, 191–203. Prince, J. P. (1995). Influences on the career development of gay men. Career Development Quarterly, 44, 168–177. Schachar, S. A., & Gilbert, L. A. (1983). Working lesbians: Role conflicts and coping strategies. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 7, 244–56. Schmitz, T. J. (1988). Career counseling implications with the gay and lesbian population. Journal of Employment Counseling, 25, 51–56. Schneider, B. E. (1987). Coming out at work: Bridging the private/public gap. Work and Occupations, 13, 463–87. Tinsley, H. (Ed.). (1994). Racial identity and vocational behavior [Special issue]. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 44(2). Tinsley, H., & Stockdale, M. (Eds.). (1993). Sexual harassment in the workplace [Special issue]. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 42(1). Woods, S. E., & Harbeck, K. M. (1992). Living in two worlds: The Identity management strategies used by lesbian physical educators. In K. M. Harbeck (Ed.), Coming out of the classroom closet (pp. 141–166). Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press. Received: August 18, 1995
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48, 119–124 (1996)
0012
Beyond Pioneering: An Introduction to the Special Issue on the Vocational Issues of Lesbian Women and Gay Men JAMES M. CROTEAU Western Michigan University AND
KATHLEEN J. BIESCHKE The Pennsylvania State University The existing career literature on the concerns of lesbian and gay people has served the crucial function of defining lesbian and gay people as a distinct nonethnic cultural group (Elliot, 1993) facing discrimination and having unique work-related concerns. Most existing literature has focused on providing suggestions for counselors in working with this population. Thus, this special issue makes a unique contribution by focusing on building theoretical or empirical understandings of the vocational psychology of lesbian women and gay men. We discuss the development and content of the special issue. Next, we reflect on the relative lack of diversity of peoples with a minority sexual orientation discussed in the issue. We conclude with a discussion on how this special issue can help move the vocational literature in this area ‘‘beyond pioneering’’ and toward the systematic building of theoretical and empirical knowledge. q 1996 Academic Press, Inc.
The Journal of Vocational Behavior has a well-documented history of leadership in publishing on issues related to the career development of women and racial or ethnic minorities as noted by Harmon (1991). The special issues on sexual harassment (Tinsley & Stockdale, 1993) and racial identity (Tinsley, 1994) are examples of the journal’s efforts at examining the vocational issues of oppressed or marginalized groups of people. This special issue on lesbian, gay, and bisexual individual’s vocational concerns continues those efforts. The psychological study of lesbian and gay issues has undergone tremendous changes in the last 25 years. Prior to this quarter century, most psychological literature focused on ‘‘presumed pathological aspects’’ of Address correspondence and reprint requests to: James M. Croteau, Ph.D., CECP Dept., 3102 Sangren Hall, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5195. 119 0001-8791/96 $18.00 Copyright q 1996 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
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homosexuality (Garnets & Kimmel, 1990, p. 144; Morin & Rothblum, 1991). A shift in perspective occurred in the 1970s and 1980s. Both social consciousness and professional activism drew attention to the data emerging from well-designed empirical studies that indicated that homosexuality was not associated with mental illness. The American Psychological Association and other social science and mental health professional associations took public positions that lesbian and gay orientations were normal variants of human sexuality (Morin & Rothblum, 1991). An affirmative perspective for studying gay and lesbian issues emerged as dominant and the subject of inquiry shifted. Attitudes toward lesbian women and gay men and the ‘‘characteristics and psychosocial issues’’ of lesbian women and gay men became the central areas of psychological study (Garnets & Kimmel, 1990, p. 144). Career concerns are an important psychosocial issue in the lives of lesbian women and gay men. A small number of scholarly articles on this topic began to emerge in the 1970s and 1980s (see Elliot, 1993). The first half of the 1990s has seen the scholarly literature in this area more than double, but still we were able to identify only 28 published scholarly works in our comprehensive review of the literature (Belz, 1993; Canon, 1973; Chung, 1995; Chung & Harmon, 1994; Croteau & Hedstrom, 1993; Croteau & Lark, 1995; Croteau & Thiel, 1993; Croteau & von Destinon, 1994; Diamant, 1993; Elliot, 1993; Etringer, Hillerbrand, & Hetherington, 1990; Fassinger, 1995; Griffin, 1992; Hall, 1986; Hetherington, 1992; Hetherington, Hillebrand, & Etringer, 1989; Hetherington & Orzek, 1989; Levine & Leonard, 1984; Milburn, 1993; Morgan & Brown, 1991; Olson, 1987; Orzek, 1992; Pope, 1995; Prince, 1995; Schachar & Gilbert, 1983; Schmitz, 1988; Schneider, 1987; Woods & Harbeck, 1992). This literature has served the crucial function of defining lesbian and gay people as a ‘‘non-ethnic cultural minority’’ (Elliot, 1993, p. 211) facing discrimination and having unique work-related concerns, behaviors, and needs that are deserving of scholarly attention. Most of the career literature has focused on providing guidance and suggestions for counselors in working with lesbian and gay career clients. Thus, although the literature has begun to meet the pressing needs of career practitioners, empirical study has been infrequent and theory building largely neglected. For this special issue, therefore, the focus is on building theoretical or empirical understandings of the vocational psychology of lesbian women and gay men. THE DEVELOPMENT AND CONTENT OF THE SPECIAL ISSUE
In the early fall of 1994, we disseminated a call for proposals for contributions that focused on theory building or empirical research. From the proposals received, we selected the contributions that we thought would best serve the theory and research focus of the special issue.
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The first section of this issue focuses on theory. Sociocognitive theory, Holland’s theory, and Super’s theory are discussed respectively by Morrow, Gore, and Campbell (1996); Mobley and Slaney (1996); and Dunkle (1996). These articles are unique in their examination of a single existing vocational theory for its applicability to this population. In a similar vein, the broad array of women’s career development theories and concepts are examined by Fassinger (1996) for their applicability to lesbian women. All four of these contributions offer hypotheses to guide future inquiry. The second section of this issue contains the first two articles in the literature to focus on methodological issues in the study of the vocational concerns of lesbian women and gay men. Lonborg and Phillips (1996) concentrate solely on methodological concerns and identify a variety of issues to consider in the design of future research in this area. Croteau (1996) reviews empirical research on the workplace experiences of this population, draws tentative conclusions from the existing findings, and suggests methodological improvements for future research on workplace experiences. The final section of the issue contains three much needed reports of original empirical research. Boatwright, Gilbert, Forrest, and Ketzenberger (1996) report a qualitative study of the career paths of eight lesbian women. The relations among identity, disclosure of sexual orientation, stress, and satisfaction in the work lives of lesbian women in a variety of careers are examined by Driscoll, Fassinger, and Kelley (1996). Finally, the first empirical examination of the attitudes and actions of career counselors in regard to lesbian, gay, and bisexual clients is provided by Bieschke and Matthews (1996). SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE SPECIAL ISSUE
We think it is important to make a particular note about the lack of diversity of the peoples with a minority sexual orientation who have been discussed in this issue. Much of what has been written in lesbian and gay career literature as well as in the general lesbian and gay psychological literature has focused on those who are well-educated, white, and clearly self-identified as lesbian or gay (Croteau, 1996; Garnets & Kimmel, 1990; Lonborg & Phillips, 1996; and Herek, Kimmel, Amaro, & Melton, 1991). In contrast, little has been written or studied about those with a same-sex sexual orientation who are less well educated, who are less clearly selfidentified as lesbian or gay, who are people of color, or who are bisexual. The contributors to this special issue have done a credible job in pointing out the limited diversity thus far considered and have made important suggestions for potential methods of accomplishing greater inclusion. In the end, however, the contributions here are generally long on exhortations to include greater diversity in future theoretical and empirical work and short on actually modeling that practice.
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The need for greater diversity is especially true of the study of bisexuality. We included bisexual people in our initial call for proposals for this issue and suggested that contributors discuss the applicability of their ideas or findings to bisexual people. We discouraged mere nominal inclusion of bisexual people. Despite our urging, most contributors choose to explicitly focus on lesbian women and gay men or only on lesbian women. Perhaps this decision reflects their recognition that the experiences of bisexual people are likely distinct from those of lesbian women or gay men. Regardless of the reason, we concluded that it would be misleading to include bisexuality in the title to this work when bisexuality is considered only to a relatively small extent by three of the contributors (see Bieschke & Matthews, 1996; Croteau, 1996; Lonborg & Phillips, 1996). We hope that this special issue will move the literature on the vocational psychology of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people beyond the beginning, pioneering phase in two important ways. First, the prior literature in this area has repeatedly and successfully argued for the legitimacy of scholarly work related to sexual orientation in vocational psychology. We envision the career literature in this area moving beyond that pioneering function toward a atmosphere free from the constraints of heterosexist bias (see Herek, et al., 1991), which would require that the legitimacy of inquiry into the unique vocational concerns of this population be constantly established. In introducing their work, we instructed the contributors to simply assume that inquiry concerning gay, lesbian, and bisexual people’s vocational concerns is valid and focus instead on establishing the theoretical or empirical importance of the particular issues that they were examining within this legitimate area of inquiry. We envision this special issue helping to set a tone that allows future scholarly work that same freedom to focus on the particular empirical or theoretical work at hand instead of on justifying inquiry in the vocational concerns of this population. Second, prior vocational literature on lesbian and gay concerns was pioneering in the sense of often being ‘‘first’’ (i.e., the first scholarly work that appeared on a particular vocational topic or the first scholarly work in a particular journal). As ‘‘firsts,’’ the ideas and findings in the pioneering literature were often presented as unique pieces of information not developed from, or understood in, the context of a larger body of literature. The literature has now grown and has entered the mainstream of vocational research and theory. Work in this area no longer needs to bear the burden of being pioneering ‘‘firsts.’’ We encouraged the contributors to this issue to build upon previous work wherever possible and to interpret their work in the context of the existing literature. We hope this special issue helps elaborate that context and eliminates the prior necessity of having to design each empirical or theoretical work in a vacuum. Theoretical and empirical knowledge is built only as each small piece of scholarly work is compared, contrasted, and eventually integrated with other such work. Perhaps our
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greatest hope for this issue is that it will play a small part in setting more firmly into motion that process of scientific inquiry concerning the vocational concerns of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. REFERENCES Belz, J. R. (1993). Sexual orientation as a factor in career development. Career Development Quarterly, 41, 197–200. Bieschke, K. J., & Matthews, C. (1996). Career counselor attitudes and behaviors towards gay, lesbian, bisexual clients. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 243–255. Boatwright, K. J., Gilbert, M. S., Forrest, L., & Ketzenberger, K. L. (1996). Impact of identity development upon career trajectory: Listening to the voices of lesbians. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 210–228. Canon, H. J. (1973). Gay students. Vocational Guidance Quarterly, 21, 181–185. Chung, Y. B. (1995). Career decision making of lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals. The Career Development Quarterly, 44, 178–190. Chung, Y. B., & Harmon, L. W. (1994). The career interests and aspirations of gay men: How sex-role orientation is related. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 45, 223–239. Croteau, J. M. (1996). Research on the work experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual people: An integrative review of methodology and findings. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 195–209. Croteau, J. M., & Hedstrom, S. M. (1993). Integrating commonality and difference: The key to career counseling with lesbian women and gay men. Career Development Quarterly, 41, 201–209. Croteau, J. M., & Lark, J. S. (1995). On being lesbian, gay or bisexual in student affairs: A national survey of experiences on the job. NASPA Journal, 32, 189–197. Croteau, J. M., & Thiel, M. J. (1993). Integrating sexual orientation in career counseling: Acting to end a form of the personal-career dichotomy. Career Development Quarterly, 42, 174– 179. Croteau, J. M., & von Destinon, M. (1994). A national survey of job search experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual student affairs professionals. Journal of College Student Development, 35, 40–45. Diamant, L. (1993). Homosexual issues in the workplace. Washington, DC: Tailor & Francis. Driscoll, J. M., Fassinger, R. E., & Kelley, F. A. (1996). Lesbian identity and self-disclosure in the workplace: Relation to occupational stress and satisfaction. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 229–242. Dunkle, J. H. (1996). Toward an integration of gay and lesbian identity development into Super’s life-span approach. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 149–159. Elliot, J. E. (1993). Career development with lesbian and gay clients. Career Development Quarterly, 41, 210–226. Etringer, B. D., Hillerbrand, E., & Hetherington, C. (1990). The influence of sexual orientation on career decision making: A research note. Journal of Homosexuality, 19, 103–111. Fassinger, R. E. (1995). From invisibility to integration: Lesbian identity in the workplace. The Career Development Quarterly, 44, 148–167. Fassinger, R. E. (1996). Notes from the margins: Integrating lesbian experience into the vocational psychology of women. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 160–175. Garnets, L., & Kimmel, D. (1990). Lesbian and gay male dimensions in the psychological study of human diversity. In J. D. Goodchilds (Ed.), Psychological perspectives on human diversity in America. Master lecturers psychology series (pp. 137–192). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Griffin, P. (1992). From hiding out to coming out: Empowering lesbian and gay educators. In K. M. Harbeck (Ed.), Coming out of the classroom closet (pp. 167–196). Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press.
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