Redefining career guidance Is it time to move on beyond the OECD definition? Tristram Hooley

overview This paper will talk about definitions. It will highlight the tensions that exist in the way that we think about and talk about ‘career’ and ‘career guidance’. Such definitions problems create considerable problems for the field. Possible solutions will be discussed.

What is Career?

Young people on Career ‘Like a permanent job that you do, jobs where you make money for yourself’ (Year 7 learner) ‘Cos you have to have a career to get a job. It’s a shorter word, but the same. Career is more posh – I don’t like being posh!’ (Year 9 learner) ‘Career- it’s a horrible word. People only use the word when they want you to do something about it. It has negative connotations’. (Year 13 learner) (Moore and Hooley, 2012)

Conceptions of career Hopson (2009) defines five commonly understood types of career Single-track – The ladder Serial career – The checker board Lifestyle career – The scales Portfolio career Each of these idealised career forms are particularly suited to the needs of different forms and aspects of capitalism From a more critical perspective we add the precarious or survival career. But this then raises questions of class and power. Who has the right to have a ‘career’?

A journey or a race

MY DEFINITION OF career Career is… the individual’s journey through life, learning and work. It is the place where the individual meets organisations and institutions. It is where individual psychology and aspirations meet social structure. In this sense everyone has a career. Whether they work, get paid, have a string of qualifications and jobs or piles of money or none of these things.

But not common meanings So… Common words But not common meanings “Career” as a term operates at multiple levels. It has literal, ideological and theoretical meanings. Because we operate in an applied discipline this creates problems. We are often trying to have conversations between policymaker, practitioners, individuals and academics/researchers.

So what is career guidance? career learning/career education/career counselling/careers advice/ information, advice and guidance (IAG)/ career management / career development?

Attempts to reinvent and lose the term ‘career’ work integrated learning/ work related learning / employability / world of work learning / life design / livelihood planning But many of these lose the ambiguity and breadth of the ‘career’ term and locate the activity more securely within the contemporary political economy and use the frame of paid work. They also result in fragmentation into sub-fields and narrows and diminishes professionalism. E.g. ‘I don’t do employability I only do careers’.

Cultural representations

Professional confusion The profession add to this confusion with the use of a variety of terms e.g. CEIAG Careers education, information, advice and guidance Which defines these activities as a series of practices with ‘guidance’ at the summit.

OECD definition Career guidance refers to services and activities intended to assist individuals, of any age and at any point throughout their lives, to make educational, training and occupational choices and to manage their careers… The activities may take place on an individual or group basis, and may be face-to-face or at a distance (including help lines and web-based services). (OECD, 2004)

So why a new Definition? Hooley, Sultana & Thompson (2017) Career guidance supports individuals and groups to discover more about work, leisure and learning and to consider their place in the world and plan for their futures. Key to this is developing individual and community capacity to analyse and problematise assumptions and power relations, to network and build solidarity and to create new and shared opportunities. It empowers individuals and groups to struggle within the world as it and to imagine the world as it could be. Career guidance can take a wide range of forms and draws on diverse theoretical traditions. But at its heart it is a purposeful learning opportunity which supports individuals and groups to consider and reconsider work, leisure and learning in the light of new information and experiences and to take both individual and collective action as a result of this. Both individual and collective perspectives and solution Critical perspectives on the world and career.

Conclusions Career guidance is bedevilled by terminological confusion. This confusion is not just a question of finding a ‘better’ word. Rather it is a site in which political, theoretical and conceptual struggles can take place.

Implications We need to utilise common language but recognise the diversity of meaning that underpins this. We need to be explicit about definitions and recognise the theoretical and political aspects inherent within them. We also need to understand and engage with learners conceptions and seek to develop them as a core part of practice. Hooley and Moore (2012)

References Hooley, T., Sultana, R.G. and Thomsen, R. (2017). The neoliberal challenge to career guidance - mobilising research, policy and practice around social justice. In Hooley, T., Sultana, R.G. and Thomsen, R. (Eds.) Career guidance for social justice: Contesting neoliberalism. London: Routledge. Hopson, B. (2009). From Vocational Guidance to Portfolio Careers: A Critical Reflection. Derby: International Centre for Guidance Studies, University of Derby. Law, B. (2012). The uses of narrative: Three scene storyboarding – learning for living, http://www.hihohiho.com/storyboarding/sbL4L.pdf . Moore, N. and Hooley, T. (2012). Talking about Career: The Language Used By and With Young People To Discuss Life, Learning and Work. Derby: International Centre for Guidance Studies, University of Derby. OECD. (2004). Career Guidance and Public Policy: Bridging the Gap. Paris: OECD.