• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.104-109
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• 2024

In this paper, we examine American career self-help advice in the context of white-collar labor market changes in the U.S., especially how it tries to motivate and empower white-collar job seekers and how fundamentally flawed this is. In this regard, we focus on What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles, as it is the foundational and representative literature in the field of career self-help advice. We first look at the white-collar labor market changes in the U.S. and the growth of career self-help advice along with its influence. We then show that What Color Is Your Parachute? seeks to motivate and inspire job seekers by defining job searching in individual terms and overlooking its structural nature. From this, we point out the most problematic aspect of career self-held advice, i.e., shifting job search responsibility as well as its outcome solely to individual job seekers, while also making it difficult to scrutinize and understand the broader context affecting job searching.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.183-188
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• 2018

This paper examines career self-help advice in light of its influence on white-collar job searching in the US. After a brief overview of the white-collar labor market changes in the past few decades and the rise of the career self-help industry in America, it focuses on career self-help advice concerning a resume and networking that involves the use of information communication technology (ICT) through the review of career self-help manuals and other related literature. Finally, it looks at some of its major limits, especially the problem of presenting job searching in terms of individual efforts without regard to its structural aspects and its implications - individual responsibility for job searching and its outcomes - along with a suggestion for the type of help that can be offered to job seekers.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.9 no.11
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• pp.134-140
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• 2019

This paper examines career self-help advice as one of the important channels that offers converged information, as well as influences popular perception, on white-collar labor market changes in the U.S. In this regard, the paper critically looks at career self-help advice by examining its discourses on the shift to white-collar employment insecurity as well as their problems. It especially focuses on a few of the leading career self-help books as an exemplary case, showing that they urge people to readily embrace the rise of precarious employment by presenting it as an inevitable as well as positive and empowering development. The paper also explores the problems with such accounts, showing how they foremost serve the needs of corporations seeking workplace changes.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.351-367
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• 1999

This study aims to study the discourses influencing high school students' concept and attitude toward mathematics, and to examine how gender differences concerning mathematical aptitude are created. This study is based on the results of previous two studies which suggested that mathematical competence differs not only according to gender, region and school year, but also even within the same gender. For this study, 12 students ranking in the top 10% at two co-ed high schools were interviewed to find out 1) what discourses are related to gender and mathematics, 2) in what way these discourses are formulated and gain currency, and 3) how they have affected students in general. Common notions concerning mathematics may be summed up as follows: 1) Most of the students believe that gender difference in mathematical aptitude results because biologically men tend to be strong in mathematics and analytical skills while women tend to have better linguistic ability. This concept can help male students' studying to have a greater learning toward mathematics. 2) A large number of the students believe that male students' studying method is based on comprehension whereas female students' method is based on retention, and hence the former group tends to be better at applying their learning than the latter group. This notion seres to encourage male students and discourage female students from tackling difficult mathematical problems. 3) Many students believe that, although female students may surpass their male counterparts in middle school or the first year of high school, they will eventually fall behind by the 3rd year. Despite research which shows that these common beliefs are not grounded in scientific proof, high-school girls, who may be strong in mathematics, lose self-confidence and feel a sense of crisis. The mechanisms which produce and reinforce such concepts as those mentioned above can be summarized as follows: 1) Regarding the choice of majors and future career paths, parents show different attitudes toward sons and daughters, and this tends to influence high-school girls and hinders them from entering mathematics-related fields. 2) Teachers with value systems based on stereo-typed gender roles affect students a great deal, and give different advice according to gender of their students, for selecting their major fields - for instance, whether to study the natural sciences as opposed to humanities. 3) This study indicates that peer-group behavior, of either support or exclusion, also reinforces the process of internalizing notions of gender difference related to mathematical aptitude. 4) The gender-based notion that men are naturally more inclined to have better mathematical ability has caused male students to choose the natural science subjects and female students to turn to the humanities. The discourses discussed above, propagated in schools and homes, and in the mass media, are continually reinforced along with general gender inequalities in the society at large.