| Current empirical research on Vietnamese American career development is extremely scarce, despite the increasing numbers of Vietnamese Americans in the labor force and steady flow of Vietnamese immigrants. Therefore, it is important to investigate factors that influence Vietnamese Americans' career choice and gain an understanding of the unbalanced occupational distribution of Vietnamese Americans in traditional and nontraditional career fields. The purpose of this dissertation was to use an emic approach to investigate the relationships among cultural/family factors (behavioral acculturation, values enculturation, and parental involvement), psychological/individual factor (career self-efficacy), social/environmental factors (family SES and welfare) and traditionality of career choice with Vietnamese Americans.; The research design of the present study was quantitative and exploratory. Data were collected using self-report, paper surveys. Participants were recruited from Southern California communities and colleges using three methods: (1) self-selected distribution of surveys in health clinics located in "Little Saigon", California (2) in-person distribution using the snowball method and (3) mail-out distribution using the snowball method. The sample consisted of 216 Vietnamese American men and women. There were slightly more women than men in the sample and their ages ranged from 18 to 40.; Traditionality of career choice was calculated using the Representation Index (Hsia, 1988) and the 2000 U.S. Census Bureau data. The most frequent career choices reported by participants in descending order were pharmacist, computer specialist, and physician. Results from a hierarchical regression analysis supported the hypothesis that cultural/family factors had an effect above and beyond the psychological/individual effect of career self-efficacy in accounting for traditionality of career choice. In addition, multiple regression analyses provided evidence for the hypotheses that career self-efficacy is shaped by cultural/family factors and career self-efficacy predicts traditionality of career choice. Contrary to other hypotheses, family SES, welfare history and values enculturation were not significantly related to career self-efficacy and traditionality of career choice. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed, along with limitations of the study. |
