The purpose of the present study was to highlight the importance of acculturation as an explanatory variable in career development and to provide an empirical review of acculturation research in the career development literature. Acculturation is a cultural variable that has been linked to a number of important career development outcomes for racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse populations. A review of 26 empirical acculturation studies in the career development literature revealed a number of positive trends such as an increase in the attention to acculturation within the literature and an improvement in the way the construct is conceptualized. However, results also indicated a number of limitations such as a disparity between conceptualization and operationalization of the construct and, at times, a lack of clear conceptual definitions of acculturation in the literature. Recommendations for research and practice are presented.
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