1. Career learning and sustainability
Lecture to VIA University College conference, 2nd November 2016
Career learning and sustainability
Emancipation from mental slavery
Tristram Hooley, Professor of Career Education, University of Derby

2. Overview I’ve seen the future and it’s murder
Where does career guidance fit into this?
Some lessons from history
A way forwards?

3. Overview I’ve seen the future and it’s murder
Where does career guidance fit into this?
Some lessons from history
A way forwards?

8. What on earth is to be done?
There ‘are a few core value-perspectives:
a commitment to the intrinsic worth of humans as ends in themselves, not means;
an understanding of the importance of the environment to human well-being;
a positive valuation of communal solidarity;
the right of people to be actively involved in the shaping of their own lives; and, finally,
a commitment to human equality and against all forms of oppression, whether based on class, ethnicity, gender or any other line of social division.’
(RGSG, 1995: 8)

10. Overview I’ve seen the future and it’s murder
Where does career guidance fit into this?
Some lessons from history
A way forwards?

12. Habitus

13. Career success

14. What are we doing?

15. 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)

17. The politics of career guidance
Careers education and guidance is a profoundly political process. It operates at the interface between the individual and society, between self and opportunity, between aspiration and realism. It facilitates the allocation of life chances. Within a society in which such life chances are unequally distributed, it faces the issue of whether it serves to reinforce such inequalities or to reduce them. Tony Watts

18. Socio-political ideologies of guidance
Radical (social change)
Progressive (individual change)
Conservative (social control)
Liberal (non-directive)

19. IAEVG statement on social justice
“IAEVG, as the largest worldwide guidance association, appeals to providers, practitioners, academics and policy makers, to increase their efforts by embracing social justice as a core value that guides their practices.” IAEVG (2013)

20. Overview I’ve seen the future and it’s murder
Where does career guidance fit into this?
Some lessons from history
A way forwards?

22. Choosing a vocation (1909)
No step in life, unless it may be the choice of a husband or wife, is more important than the choice of a vocation… You may not be able to get into the right line of work at first. You may have to learn your living for a while in any way that is open to you. But if you study yourself and get sufficient knowledge of various industries to determine what sort of work you are best adapted to, and then carefully prepare yourself for efficient service in that line, the opportunity will come for you to make use of the best that is you in your daily work.

23. What Parsons stood for
Frank Parsons was a consistent opponent of that individualism which pits men against each other in the struggle for existence, and an earnest advocate of that individuality that fits men for useful membership in the social body, and so draws them together in mutual fellowship and service. (Kent, 1908: 636 from Plant and Kjærgård, 2016)

24. What else can we draw on Friere’s, pedagogy of the oppressed
Plant’s green guidance
Ratnam’s work on craft and livelihood planning
Thomsen’s career guidance in communities
And lots more work on social justice and radical, contextually situated forms of education and guidance.

26. Overview I’ve seen the future and it’s murder
Where does career guidance fit into this?
Some lessons from history
A way forwards?

27. Transforming structures
CG policies
CG practices
Habitus
Career
These are all sites for struggle and contestation about the kind of world that we want to live in…

29. Challenging the faces of oppression
Challenge
Exploitation. Unfair compensation and coercion.
Notice, highlight and challenge issues of inequality, low pay and precarity in the labour market.
Empower individuals and groups to challenge this.
Marginalisation. Loss of work, power and respect.
Understand who is marginalised and locked out of the labour market and work to help them to reingage.
Powerlessness. Always being on the receiving end of orders.
Help people to understand what power is and how it operates.
Encourage people to seek autonomy and self-efficacy.
Cultural imperialism. Imposing ‘norms’ on people.
Respect difference and reaffirm pluralism.
Violence. Random, unprovoked attacks.
Challenge individual and institutional violence (advocacy) and encourage others to challenge it (empowerment).

31. 5 questions career guidance should ask
Who am I?
How does the world work?
Where do I fit into the world?
How can I live with others?
How do I go about changing the world?

32. References
Friere, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum. First published 1970.
Kent, A. (1908). Memorial Services in Memory of Professor Parsons in the Nation’s Capital. Washington.
Hooley, T. (2015). Emancipate Yourselves from Mental Slavery: Self-Actualisation, Social Justice and the Politics of Career Guidance. Derby: International Centre for Guidance Studies, University of Derby.
Hooley, T. and Barham, L. (Eds.). (2015). Career Development Policy and Practice: The Tony Watts Reader. Stafford: Highflyers.
Hooley, T. and Sultana, R. (2016). Career guidance for social justice. Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling, 36, 2-11.
Law, B. (2012). The uses of narrative: Three scene storyboarding – learning for living,
Parsons, F. (1909). Choosing a Vocation. Boston; New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Plant, P. (2014). Green guidance. In Arulmani, G., Bakshi, A., Leong, F.T.L., and Watts, A.G. (Eds.) Handbook of Career Development. Springer.
Plant, P. and Kjærgård, R. (2016). From mutualism to individual competitiveness: Implications and challenges for social justice within career guidance in neoliberal times. Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling, 36,
Ratnam, A. (2011). Traditional occupations in a modern world: Implications for career guidance and livelihood planning. International Journal of Educational and Vocational Guidance, 11(2):
Red-Green Study Group. (1995). What On Earth is To Be Done? Manchester: Red-Green Study Group.
Thomsen, R. (2012). Career Guidance in Communities. Aarhus, Denmar: Aarhus University Press.

33. So where does this leave us
There is a need for radical change to ensure both social justice and sustainability.
We can fight for this politically, but this will also require people to change the way that they think about their lives.
Career guidance has always been political and can be linked to movements for change.
We need to develop models of career guidance that change society for the better.

34. Tristram Hooley Professor of Career Education
International Centre for Guidance Studies
University of Derby
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