BEYOND PIONEERING - AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE ON THE VOCATIONAL ISSUES OF LESBIAN WOMEN AND GAY MEN

The existing career literature on the concerns of lesbian and gay peop le has served the crucial function of defining lesbian and gay people as a distinct nonethnic cultural group (Elliot, 1993) facing discrimin ation and having unique work-related concerns. Most existing literatur e 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 de velopment and content of the special issue. Next, we reflect on the re lative lack of diversity of peoples with a minority sexual orientation discussed in the issue. We conclude with a discussion on how this spe cial issue can help move the vocational literature in this area ''beyo nd pioneering'' and toward the systematic building of theoretical and empirical knowledge. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.