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Announcement: Doctoral Summer School in Mannheim, Germany September 4 – 9, 2017, NICE Newsletter, No 1 (2017)

This symposium presents analysis of narrative interviews focused on the strategic career and learning biographies of 105 low-skilled individuals in the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Poland the United Kingdom. Researchers wanted to understand how low-skilled workers construct meaning around learning and skills development in relation to work and employment. All participants were interviewed individually, then a full transcript of the interview was produced. Each country research team analysed these interviews to identify themes. Some themes were born out of the particular national context, with policy and labour market conditions each playing a significant role in the outcomes for the individual. There was evidence of the scarring effects of unemployment in Italy and for Poland, of the effect of an economy in transition. The Danish sample reflected how public support structures facilitate participation in assessment of prior learning in order to help people in the transition from unskilled to skilled positions. In the case of France there was evidence of structures resulting from national policy decisions which were effectively supporting individuals engaged in continuing vocational education. Analysis across the whole project sample led to the articulation of major themes around learning and career decision-making. The learning themes incorporated complementary perspectives on how individuals make meaning of their experience including: engaging with learning and the different personal drivers for learning; attitudes to adult learning and how those attitudes link with personal perceptions of outcomes of learning; and accreditation of prior learning. Learning plays into the way career decisions are made, along with interpersonal influences and of course, employment opportunities. This research delivered rich narrative of personal agency within wider structures. Close attention was paid to the exploration of attitudinal and structural obstacles and barriers to learning across the life course, including the importance of learning for identity formation. Of equal importance was consideration of the ways in which learning contributed to positive labour market outcomes. There were many examples of participants in all seven countries who had previously or were currently in the process of restructuring careers - along with examples of promising practice in this regard.

The recent privatisation of careers guidance provision in the United Kingdom has\ud resulted in major cultural change in the organisation of guidance companies. This\ud research examines the effect this external change has had on the quality of working\ud life for professionals engaged in the practice of careers guidance. The intention of\ud the policy was to improve service delivery not the quality of careers guidance.\ud Nevertheless, the implementation of the policy has had a discernible effect on the\ud way professionals experience work and on the guidance they give. Questions of\ud professional ownership and protectionism arise and are addressed with reference to\ud guidance and ethical frameworks.\ud Field research was undertaken with careers practitioners working in the South East\ud and in the North of England. The data collection comprised a questionnaire\ud administered to these two groups, followed by focus groups conducted with some\ud respondents from the South East sample. The concern was to understand how these\ud careers professionals are finding their way in changed circumstances; the approach\ud was phenomenological and interpretative (Huberman & Miles, 1994).\ud The findings demonstrate that guidance professionals are feeling under pressure\ud from targets introduced after contracting out. Practitioners are struggling to satisfy\ud the individual needs of their clients against policy requirements for standardised\ud outcomes: a tension familiar in the professionalism and managerialism debate\ud (Friedson, 1994; Edwards, 1998 and Becher, 1999). This pressure is exacerbated by\ud the anticipation of further policy changes for careers guidance delivery.\ud Where the organisation sees the strategic imperative as contract compliance,\ud commercial success has been at some cost to guidance professionals and their\ud practice. A more explicit consideration of ethical practice during strategy\ud formulation might be a way forward in the management of change in careers\ud companies. There is evidence that policy fails fully to understand how careers\ud guidance works.

No abstract available.

The citizens of Europe are facing increasingly complex challenges to their career development nowadays. Over the span of their lifetime, they need to manage their careers, and make numerous decisions concerning education, training and employment – decisions, which seriously impact their futures and their wellbeing. To prepare citizens for these challenges, and to support them in the progress, competent career practitioners are needed. But what kinds of career practitioners are we talking about? And what do they need to be able to do? How can the quality of their training be assured? This handbook introduces common European competence standards for the academic training of career practitioners in Europe, together with some proposals and examples, of how to implement and establish such competence standards in practice. More than 200 experts from all across Europe have contributed to the development of these shared standards of the Network for Innovation in Career Guidance and Counselling in Europe (NICE). The standards are already being used in many countries for the development of degree programs. (DIPF/Verlag)