PERSISTENCE, CONNECTION, AND PASSION - A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF THE CAREER-DEVELOPMENT OF HIGHLY ACHIEVING AFRICAN-AMERICAN BLACK-AND-WHITE WOMEN

This article describes a qualitative study of the career development o f 18 prominent, highly achieving African American-Black and White wome n in the United States across 8 occupational fields. Grounded theory m ethodology (B. G. (Glaser & A. L. Strauss, 1967; A. L. Strauss & J. Co rbin, 1990) was used to generate a theory of the career development of participants that was grounded in their experiences, as related in se mistructured, in-depth interviews. The theoretical model generated fro m the data included 5 major components: (a) a core story consisting of participants' work behaviors and attitudes, which is enacted within ( b) sociocultural, (c) personal background, and (d) current contextual conditions and leads to particular career (e) actions and consequences . The emergent model and illustrative quotations from participants are presented, and the implications of the study and the theoretical mode l for both research and practice are discussed.