To Be a Black Woman and Working: The Integration of Theory in Career Development

ABSTRACT Critical race theory (CRT) is a multidisciplinary framework centered on equity and social justice, examining how race and ethnicity intersect with laws, media, health care, and institutions. For counselors, CRT offers a lens to explore race and career development, helping facilitate needed conversations on race, gender, and class often avoided in the United States. Black women navigate career development through belonging, institutional support, stereotypes, and counterspaces. This article examines how counselors can integrate CRT with narrative career construction and the self‐creation, circumscription, and compromise (SCCC) theory, illustrated through the case vignette of Ashley.