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Children's career exploration is a critical aspect of career development. Through it, children explore the interplay between their different life roles, including those related to work (in a broad sense), learning, and education. Through career exploration, children can (re)construct the emotions derived from the interactions between personal and contextual factors by giving meaning to life experiences. This process involves cognitive and affective activities. Evidence suggests that children from low-income contexts are more likely to drop out of school and show lower educational aspirations. Providing career exploration interventions introduces an intentional learning that allows children to develop a higher level of career awareness and increase their aspirations for the future. The sample analyzed consisted of students between 6 and 8 years old from a low-income school in Seville (Spain). The data collection methods used have been those of collaborative ethnography (e.g., unstructured interviews, student productions, and photographs). Co-analysis was the chosen method for systematizing the information used in this research. Our results have revealed a system of influences which plays an important role in the different contexts and emotions that the children derive from their interactions with different spaces and socialization agents. In short, through career exploration, children mobilize exploratory behaviors, providing emotional responses. Collaborative ethnography has been shown to be a valid process for research on career exploration as social and emotional learning.

This research analyses childhood career development learning through a qualitative career assessment. To help children to make meaning of the career influences, culturally sensitive procedures were used. A case-study design has been carried out, using techniques such as mapping, family portrait, role-playing and self-portrait to unveil the process of 5-year old children's career development learning. The findings illustrate the process of meaning making of the children's system of influences in low-income contexts. They show the life themes that shape the construction of identities. The conclusion highlights the usefulness of qualitative career assessment in enhancing career development learning. The use of culturally sensitive procedures allows children to raise critical awareness about the factors that influence their career construction.

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Vocational Education and Training (VET) policies are paying increasing attention towards the need to develop quality career guidance processes. Career guidance plays an essential role in this challenge by enabling people to develop the career management skills that allow them to become aware of their full potential and to construct life projects that facilitate the emotional management of uncertainty and complexity, participating as responsible agents in their environment. After conducting a literature review on each of these key elements, we set out to identify best practices in VET as “building blocks” for the construction of an integrated career guidance plan in VET. This study adopts an approach based on qualitative methodology, specifically a documentary type of research has been carried out. The documents analysed correspond to 88 best practices identified in Andalusia (Spain). The analysis strategy used was a content analysis. For this purpose, a system of categories has been designed, from a deductive perspective, which has contributed to a systematic analysis of them. One of the first conclusions of the study is the uneven development o best practices in the different VET professional pathways. The practices carried out in the centres begin to incorporate different elements and thus facilitate the creation of a suitable context for the development of comprehensive career guidance plans in VET. The article closes by offering implications for the development of guidance in the education system (at VET level) and discusses lines of future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]