Developing a Contextualised Career Construction Theory Framework for Secondary School Students in Northern Nigeria: A Grounded Theory Approach

Career construction theory, originally developed within Western individualist frameworks, may require substantial contextualisation to adequately account for the collectivist, religiously influenced, and economically constrained career development realities of adolescents in Northern Nigeria. This study developed a contextualised career construction theory framework applicable to secondary school students in Northern Nigeria through a grounded theory methodology. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with 65 SS3 students from fifteen secondary schools across Kano, Sokoto, and Bauchi States, supplemented by 20 interviews with experienced school counsellors. Theoretical sampling, constant comparative analysis, and memo-writing guided data collection and analysis. Findings generated a substantive grounded theory characterised by four emergent categories: religious occupational filtering, family occupational inheritance, community-approved aspiration narrowing, and adaptive future orientation. The theory posits that Northern Nigerian adolescents construct careers through a process of negotiation between individual aptitudes and externally imposed community-religious vocational scripts, mediated by economic realism. The resulting contextualised framework challenges Western career construction assumptions around autonomy and self-determination and proposes culturally grounded counsellor roles centred on narrative facilitation within community contexts. The study offers an original theoretical contribution to career development research in sub-Saharan Africa. Recommendations included curriculum reform in Nigerian guidance training programmes to incorporate locally grounded theoretical frameworks. Keywords: career construction theory, grounded theory, Northern Nigeria, contextualisation, cultural career development.