An important contribution of our study is the insight it offers into the
process of how parents influence Mainland Chinese children’s career
development. The parents did not intentionally influence their children’s
career development, but they, especially the mothers, did play a role in
the children’s career learning and the development of career aspirations.
They responded to their children’s career curiosities and provided opportunities
for their children to learn about careers and develop career
interests. Just as important, along with fostering children’s independent
career decision making based on what the children liked, the parents also
influenced the children to choose careers of high status by emphasizing
the importance of academic success to future career status. This reflected
a mixed influence of Western values and Confucian ideology and could
contribute to children’s career decision-making difficulties when they
grow up (Leung et al., 2011). Such a finding emphasizes the importance
of cultural influence in career development and reinforces the need for
the internationalization of career development theory, research, and
practice (Leung & Yuen, 2012; McMahon & Watson, 2012).