Search

This paper draws on the fund of regional knowledge about career guidance that comparative research has generated in the "global South". The goal of the paper is to add another voice to the challenge to the universalising language that characterises career guidance theory and practice, and to further highlight the serious attention that needs to be given to "localisms" and "particularisms" so that responses that are sensitive to context can emerge. While several authors make a case for attention to context, few explicitly link epistemological and ontological concerns to the issue of political power. In contrast, in this paper I argue that inductive theorising is more likely to not only generate relevant and useful knowledge and practices: it is also more likely to serve the interests of social justice.

This paper provides a scoping approach to the issue of career guidance in multicultural societies. It starts off by exploring the meaning of "culture," moving away from "back-pack" approaches that consider culture as a set of worldviews and dispositions that are readily shed or put on, to anthropological understandings of culture as deeply held ways of meaning making that permeate all levels of one's life and one's relationship with others. Such complex approaches to culture challenge career guidance workers to problematise notions they hold of themselves and of others, and to face up to the challenge of alterity. In effecting this troubling reaching inwards and reaching outwards, and in striving for the epiphany of "knowing," a number of pitfalls need to be acknowledged and overcome. These include our own incipient monoculturalism, the romanticisation, essentialisation and exoticisation of culture, as well as restricted notions of equality.

Career guidance claims a lineage to "modernity", where individuals carve dignified lives for themselves, irrespective of social origin. Here, "social justice" has particular connotations, relating to the meritocratic redistribution of resources in ways that reward ability and effort. This article explores alternative conceptions of social justice, taking seriously the fundamental insight that if individuals make history, they do so in circumstances not of their own making. Drawing on recent theories of social justice, an effort is made to "trouble" mainstream notions of career guidance, and to imagine how it can be of the greatest benefit to the least advantaged.

This article sets out to trigger research and policy attention among the career guidance community to the increasingly important notion of "flexicurity". It first explores the different meanings of the term, particularly as these have evolved in discussions across the European Union. It then goes on to consider why "flexicurity" has attracted so much policy interest, particularly in its promise to both support labour market competitiveness and increase economic efficiency on the one hand, while protecting the interests of workers on the other. Next, the article documents some of the key debates around the notion of "flexicurity", highlighting the fact that any consideration of "flexicure" arrangements needs to be empirically grounded in time and space, and carefully contextualised. The article concludes by making a series of critical reflections on the need to "insert" career guidance in the European discourse on "flexicurity". (Contains 1 table.)

Career management skills (CMS) are increasingly touted as necessary for all citizens, young and adult, particularly given the realities of employment and self-employment in a knowledge-based society, where "protean", "portfolio" careers are expected to increasingly become the norm, and lifelong career guidance an entitlement of all citizens. This paper provides an account of how CMS are featuring ever more prominently on the agenda of many European countries, and explores how such skills are being defined, how and where they are being taught and assessed, and the various modalities by means of which they are integrated in education and training programmes in both the education and labour market sectors. Particular care is given to debates and tensions around the notion of CMS, and to considering trends and initiatives not only from a country-specific perspective, but also from a European one, given the interest of the European Commission in supporting policy development in the area through its Lifelong Learning Programme. The paper concludes by highlighting some of the more pressing issues that need to be addressed. (Contains 1 table and 1 note.)

This paper argues that the current articulation of the lifelong career guidance paradigm stands in danger of uncritically reflecting core agendas underpinning neo-liberalism as well as New Public Management principles. It highlights the distinctions that ought to be drawn between seeing the user of career guidance services as a "customer", "client" or "user" on the one hand, and as a "citizen" on the other, and claims that the political philosophy informing these terms reveals fundamental tensions that need to be addressed in the formulation of public policy in relation to guidance. The paper concludes by re-calling the notion of a "social contract" between the state and the citizen, which is particularly appropriate in a historical conjuncture marked by insecurity, and which would infuse lifelong guidance with the critical edge that it urgently requires. (Contains 1 note.)

This paper engages in a series of critical self-reflections on the author's involvement in the spate of career guidance reviews that have taken place since the year 2000, and which were commissioned by such supra-national entities as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and various agencies and directorates of the European Commission. The author argues that this series of overlapping comparative studies--involving 55 countries in all--constitutes a powerful discursive field that has helped to frame career guidance in particular ways, and that it has led to opportunities for policy lending and policy borrowing on an unprecedented scale. The author examines the dynamics of such policy learning, identifying some of its potential motives as well as key mechanisms by which transfers take place through "push" and "pull" forces. He then goes on to raise a series of questions regarding the viability of deterritorialised policy exchange, noting that social practices such as career guidance are inscribed in a particular complex of values, meanings, and significations that are tightly coupled to the ecological climate in which they thrive. Drawing on his experience in the Middle East and North Africa, the author reflects on career guidance in Arab countries in order to illustrate the way transnational, globalised agendas are reconfigured and reinterpreted at the local level. The paper concludes by considering the ethical and epistemological responsibilities that need to be confronted by 'boundary persons' who mediate between the global and the local.

The history of the involvement of the European Union in the development of policy related to career guidance is analysed in terms of three broad periods. In the first two of these, interventions were confined to pilot projects, exchanges and placements, study visits and studies/surveys, with particular attention to young people; whereas the period since 2000 has seen greater attention being paid to lifelong activities that support the implementation of EU policy priorities and their mainstreaming at national level. These trends reflect both the EU's "creeping competence" and the emerging concept of "lifelong guidance."

This paper discusses the way career guidance is conceived across Europe as a policy instrument that can facilitate social inclusion. It locates current articulations of career guidance within the broader social-market aspirations of the European Union, providing an account of several reviews and analyses of the field that have been carried out at both member state and regional levels. The paper examines how the prevailing model of lifelong career guidance in Europe ties into strongly embedded notions of social welfare that, while increasingly challenged by neo-liberal imperatives, nevertheless continue to strive to ensure solidarity towards all citizens, especially those most at risk of social exclusion. Within such an articulation, career guidance in Europe is keen not only to facilitate autonomy and self-sufficiency by equipping citizens with the life skills needed to manage educational and occupational pathways, but also to provide the support required throughout life, when and where it is needed. However, while much has been done in Europe to cater for the career guidance needs of vulnerable groups, it is clear that several challenges remain.

This paper considers some of the debates surrounding the term competence and the relevance that these have for the development of competence frameworks. Such frameworks are increasingly on the agenda, since they purport to support training programme development, to identify competence gaps, to promote self-development, and to ensure common standards. This paper shows, however, that notions of competence have specific meanings in particular contexts, that they have been contested, and that they have fallen into and out of favour over time. The paper concludes by teasing out the implications that competing definitions of competence have for the guidance field.

This paper sets out to report the findings of a series of major international reviews of career guidance, focusing in particular on studies that were carried out in the member states of the European Union. After providing a context and background for these reviews, the paper goes on to consider the way career guidance, when seen from a lifelong perspective, can help address a range of public policy goals, in relation to the needs of both young people and adults. It then highlights some of the key challenges that career guidance services are required to face up to. Key among these challenges are the need to improve access; the need to enhance quality by, among others, improving labour market information and providing better training for guidance staff; the need to allocate adequate funding in order to ensure that service supply meets demand; and the need to have more proactive policy steering, so that career guidance services are part of a well thought-through strategy that brings different providers together in order to offer lifelong support in a truly seamless manner. The paper concludes by stressing the need to better integrate lifelong guidance into lifelong learning strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]