The Future Isn’t What It Used to Be! Revisiting the Changing World of Work After Covid- 19

This chapter explores the future of work. It argues that while predicting the future is very difficult, this has not prevented a wide variety of commentators from seeking to make such predictions. Covid-19 has resulted in a substantial reimagining of the future of work. Prior to the pandemic, the future was imagined as one of automation, digital technology, globalisation and the reduction in the utility of human beings unless they could increase their adaptability and flexibility. After the pandemic, the future of work is characterised in terms of a shift to remote working practices, accelerating technological change, growing unemployment and inequality. Such changes have led commentators to call for increased government engagement in the economy and the workplace, and for new thinking and investment from businesses to manage the changes. Such shifts and changes, if they come to pass, require an active and robust response from career educators. Educators should encourage students to view predictions about the future critically and to recognise their contingency, and support them to take both individual and collective action to shape the future

Delivering career education in the post pandemic world

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on our lives and our careers. It has disrupted education, dealt a major shock to the economy and labour markets, and transformed workplaces through the rapid rise of working from home. The way in which the pandemic has rewritten our future means that career education is more important than ever. Young people need the opportunity to investigate how the pandemic has changed their aspirations and to develop their plans for the new future that they face

Exploring the roles, qualifications and skills of career guidance professionals in schools. An international review

This report explores practice in school-based career education and guidance in five comparator countries. It examines the following questions. • What kinds of training and qualifications are required to lead career guidance in a school? • What skills does it require to undertake these roles effectively? How are these skills usually developed? • Does the existing National Quality Framework for Career Guidance provide a sufficient framework for the development of professionalism in Norwegian schools or is there a need to supplement it with additional guidance and specification. Key findings include: • It is common for governments to place a legal expectation on schools to deliver career guidance. This frequently includes detail about how career guidance should be delivered and requirements for the training and qualification of careers professionals. • Qualifications for career guidance professionals working in schools are typically at either the Bachelors degree level or at the Masters level. In some countries the requirement for professional practice is built on through a formal certification or registration process. • There are a relatively common set of skills and competences which are identified by the case study countries. These broadly align with the Norwegian National Quality Framework for Career Guidance framework. • Most countries have developed forms of quality assurance for career guidance in schools. Quality is assured across a range of domains including policy, organisation, process and people

Impartiality: A critical review

This article (re)opens debate about the concept of ‘impartiality’ in career guidance. It argues that while the concept of impartiality is at the centre of professional ethics for career guidance in the UK, it is poorly defined and weakly theorised. Through a process of concept mapping and an exploration of the challenges associated with impartiality, the article clarifies the definition of impartiality and problematises its centrality in the UK’s ethical frameworks. The article argues that there are three main ideas which constitute the contemporary notion of impartiality: institutional independence, outcome neutrality and political neutrality. It argues that the grouping of these three ideas under a single term is unhelpful as they all raise different issues and objections. The article then outlines five challenges: ambiguity; application in practice; alignment with career theory, tensions with other ethical values; and practicing within partial funding regimes. Finally, some ways forward are suggested

Building a radical career imaginary: using Laclau and Mouffe and Hardt and Negri to reflexively re-read Ali and Graham’s counselling approach to career guidance

In this article I explore what the work of Laclau and Mouffe and Hardt and Negri has to offer career theory and models. There is value to engaging with key concepts from these political economists to inform and expand career guidance’s capability to support social justice. The argument is made that the concepts offer novel and valuable resources for the development of career theory. These concepts are applied to undertake a reflexive re-reading of Ali and Graham’s counselling approach to career guidance

Advising on career image: perspectives, practice and politics

This article analyses qualitative data gathered from a survey of career practitioners on the issue of career image (n = 355, 75% female, 89% white and 78% from the UK). Findings reveal three key themes which represent how career image relates to practitioners’ values and beliefs, how practitioners make decisions about whether to address the topic in their practice and the strategies they use to address career image with their clients. Findings are discussed with reference to Watts’s socio-political ideologies of guidance. The data indicate that career practitioners are often uncomfortable about discussing career image, but address it where they believe that it is important to their clients’ success. While some practitioners believe the existing structures to be unjust, they generally seek to address this injustice at the individual level rather than seeking any kind of social transformation

Ensuring quality in online career mentoring

This article explores the issue of quality in online career mentoring. It builds on a previous evaluation of Brightside, an online mentoring system in the UK which is primarily aimed at supporting young people's transitions to further learning. The article notes that participants in Brightside's mentoring programmes reported satisfaction with their experiences, with many stating that it helped them to make decisions and to positively change their learning and career behaviours. However, the article argues that there are challenges in ensuring quality and consistency connected to both the voluntary nature of mentoring and the online mode. The article proposes a 10-point quality framework to support quality assurance, initial training and professional development for online mentors

Lessons for career guidance from return-on-investment analyses in complex education-related fields

Return on investment (ROI) has become part of the policymaking toolkit, particularly pertinent for activities like school-based career guidance deemed optional by some policymakers. There are institutions supporting ideal ROI methods alongside an academic critique, but little research on how ROI has been applied in practice in a guidance setting. In this systematic review, we document 32 ROI studies across nine countries that address either school-based guidance or one of three congruent fields: widening participation in education, behaviour in schools and adult career guidance. We find the corpus highly heterogenous in methods and quality, leading to problems in comparability. We argue for a pragmatic approach to improving consistency and the importance of policymakers’ capacity for critically reading ROI studies

A Reflection on the Legacy of Ronald Sultana

This article marks the death of Ronald Sultana and sets out his key academic contribution, particularly in terms of his work on career guidance and social justice and career guidance in the Global South