Abstract
Editor David Strauser prefaces the text Career Development, Employment, and Disability in Rehabilitation: From Theory to Practice with both an assertion and a confession of sorts that may ring familiar to many rehabilitation counseling educators, students, and professionals. The assertion pertains to the centrality of work in the life of individuals, especially individuals with disabilities. And the “confession?” Strauser notes that although he has always held the centrality of work as a basic tenet in his own rehabilitation counseling career, there have been many times when this tenet has been overshadowed by the perceptions that other professionals hold that minimize the centrality of work and may even intimidate rehabilitation counseling professionals who assert that work is central to everyone’s life, especially individuals with disabilities.
In the text, Strauser affirms this central tenet in a manner that is both comprehensive and unique in the following ways: its emphasis on the impact of poverty on the career development and employment prospects of individuals with disabilities; its expansion of traditional career-development theories to include the theoretical foundations of job satisfaction, work analysis, personality, and impression management; and its emphasis on the importance and methodology of conducting both labor market and transferrable skills analyses, rather than relegating them only to forensic cases. As Strauser makes his smooth transition into the text’s content, he asserts, “This is work worth doing.” A careful analysis and application of this text leads this reviewer to conclude, “This text is worth reading, teaching, and using.”
Organizationally speaking, the five major sections (Overview of the Major Constructs; Theoretical Foundations; Occupational Assessment, Information, and Evaluation; Intervention Strategies; and Populations and Settings) flow logically and quite strategically. The introductory explanations of several major constructs lead effectively into a thorough and thought-provoking presentation of theoretical foundations. Lively and engaging discussions of assessment topics (including work values, occupational and labor market information, computer-based vocational guidance systems, and work analysis), intervention strategies (including elements of effective job placement, supported employment, and sustained employment), and unique populations and settings (including private-practice vocational rehabilitation, transition from school, serving persons with psychiatric disabilities, physical disabilities, women, and ethnic minorities) follow effectively, building on previous chapters and progressing into the next chapters. The reader is left with a renewed appreciation for the depth and the breadth of work-related subjects and the challenges and opportunities each chapter identifies. The respective chapters are consistently designed around a clear statement of chapter objectives, informative tables and charts, and significantly helpful summaries that identify pertinent research and research frontiers that invite further exploration.
In terms of content, each chapter is carefully constructed to address its stated objectives and to embellish the theme of the text as a whole. The chapter authors manage to present the content in such a way as to inform, challenge, and engage the reader in further reflection and research. In this way, the text’s content not only imparts knowledge (and in an up-to-date fashion) but also imparts a sense of opportunity and urgency. In doing so, the text demonstrates that rehabilitation counseling is a dynamic profession that strives toward best practices as characterized by a persistent and skilled pursuit of evidence-based knowledge, tools, and practices. Especially thought-provoking presentations are given on the topics of work values, the conceptualization of theories as playing an essential role in enhancing the working alliance between rehabilitation practitioners and their clients, work-incentives counseling, empowerment through employment, the applications of work analysis, and understanding job-development practices in the context of theoretical and legislative trends. Although each chapter possesses a certain stand-alone quality, cross-walking the chapters is readily accomplished. In this reviewer’s actual teaching experience using this text, this aspect was well received by master’s-level students and current rehabilitation practitioners alike.
Although the text’s presentation of theoretical foundations is useful and contemporary, it could have been strengthened by a succinct and informative discussion of how theories are conceived, nurtured, and subsequently expanded. For example, this reviewer found it helpful to supplement the text’s treatment of theories by a concurrent presentation of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, including a class discussion of paradigm formation and expansion. In this way, learners were able to gain an appreciation for how theories are developed. Also, it helped unfold for them the essential role they as prospective and/or current rehabilitation practitioners serve in the ongoing articulation and testing of theoretical formulations related to rehabilitation, employment, and disability. Finally, the style of this text is noteworthy. The authors have managed to collaborate on a text that is informative yet lively, factual yet engaging, and scholarly yet inviting. It does, indeed, stimulate the reader’s own interests, experiences, and passions to further extend the breadth and effectiveness of vocational rehabilitation.
Strauser’s acknowledgment, “confession,” and stated goals in his preface were refreshing and insightful. His overarching intention to offer a text that is tightly focused on the centrality of work in the lives of individuals, especially individuals with disabilities, and to do so in such a way that is unique, inviting, and hopeful, is achieved. Strauser asserts, “This is work worth doing.” As this reviewer sees things, “This text and its accompanying Instructor’s Manual are worth reading, teaching, and using.”