BORN FREE to Integrated Life Planning: Advancing Equity in Career Development

BORN FREE and Integrated Life Planning (ILP) are two efforts that have advanced equity within career development. This article reviews the concepts of BORN FREE and ILP, connecting both efforts to current visions of social justice.This opportunity to reflect on the efforts to advance equity in career development that spanned the time between the introduction of BORN FREE and the current time is an exciting occasion to consider how far we have come and, as many would agree, how far we have left to go. For career professionals, this reflection is meant to honor the work that so many of us do to advance equity across the plethora of dimensions that humanity presents us. It is also meant to challenge, provide ideas, and encourage us in continuing our important work. We have much to do.It is not hard to devise a mental picture of life and culture in the early 1970s. Syndicated shows like That '70s Show provide ready imagery of the fashions of the decade. Many of us can sing along to at least a song or two from that time, whether from Carole King, Stevie Wonder, or ABBA. During the 1970s, an era that was characterized by marches for gender equity and the tumultuous final years of the Vietnam War, individuals in the streets, legislative chambers, schools, and academic halls were grappling with how to enact change toward a more equitable society. Within this context and funded by one of the legislative milestones of the time, the Women's Educational Equity Act (WEEA), Sunny Hansen collaborated with other equity-minded individuals to create BORN FREE.BORN FREE: Then and NowBORN FREE (Build Options Reassess Norms Free Roles through Educational Equity) was one of hundreds of programs funded by the WEEA to foster a vision of gender equality in the classroom and in the workplace. The BORN FREE program was conceptualized by Hansen, a faculty member at the University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development, to expand career options for boys and girls, women and men, by reducing career-related sex-role stereotyping in educational institutions. Current literature on the underrepresentation of women and some minority groups in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers highlights the complex factors that contribute to this reality (Bayer Corporation, 2010; Byars-Winston & Fouad, 2008; Hill, Corbett, & St. Rose, 2010). One such factor is discouragement by educators, parents, and other people of influence. In the early 1970s, although it was still several years before Bronfenbrenner (1979) presented his ecological model that described the systemic influences that affected people's behavior, and even more years before Lent, Brown, and Hackett ( 1994) operationalized their understanding of the impact of verbal persuasion and environment on career self-efficacy in the social cognitive career theory, the collaborators of BORN FREE understood the importance of influencing the inhibiters and facilitators (the "Ifs") of career development by providing an intervention that challenged educators and parents to examine their beliefs about gender role stereotyping and make strides to expand options for all people (Hansen & Keierleber, 1978). The result of this understanding, reinforced by an extensive review of the literature on sex-role socialization, was a multifaceted program that integrated concepts of career development, change, and gender socialization into a series of training packets, videos, and local and national workshops. BORN FREE was one of the first programs to focus on the relationship between gender and career (Dege, 2007) and one of the first multimedia career interventions. Nine 30-minute video tapes were created specifically for the program (including "Born Free: A World of Options," which received the Best Video Award in 1979 from the American Counseling Association), providing stimulus for rich discussion during program workshops and trainings.Our objective in discussing the components and process of BORN FREE is not to describe the program as a static example of efforts to diminish gender inequity in the 1970s but rather to examine its relevance to current issues. …