Is career guidance for the individual or for the market? Implications of EU policy for career guidance

Abstract

This paper explores the essential understanding and underlying perspectives of career implicit in EU career guidance policy in the twenty-first century, as well as the possible implications of these for the future mission of guidance. Career theories, models and concepts that serve career guidance are shaped on the twentieth-century industrial division of labour and now face a crisis due to the influence of globalization on working life. The transition to a knowledge-based society also challenges the traditional view of career: vocational and educational paths are no longer linear, predictable or stable. The analyses of EU policy documents and ethical declarations discussed here indicate that meanings of career are under reconstruction and that these documents fail to clarify the underlying meanings or perspectives on career contained therein. The essential meaning of career, as communicated through characterizations and dominating underlying perspectives in EU policy, puts greater emphasis on career guidance as being conducted on behalf of society, rather than the individual. Ethical tensions within the career guidance profession appear to have increased, and the profession is also challenged in its professionalization by contradictions and broadened areas, activities and functions.

Notes

1. The analysis of the European policy documents on career guidance was first published in: Bergmo-Prvulovic (2012). http://www.rela.ep.liu.se/issues/10.3384rela.2000-7426.201232/rela0072/rela0072.pdf.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ingela Bergmo-Prvulovic

Ingela Bergmo-Prvulovic is a doctoral student in Education at the Jönköping University, School of Education and Communication, Encell—National Centre for Lifelong Learning, Jönköping. She is interested in underlying meanings and social representations of career and career guidance based on structural and individual perspectives, and implications for career guidance. She has published: (2012) Subordinating careers to market forces? A critical analysis of European career guidance policy, in European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults, and (2013) Social Representations of Career – Anchored in the Past, Conflicting with the future, in Papers on Social Representations. Correspondence: Jönköping University, School of Education and Communication, Encell—National Centre for Lifelong Learning, Box 1026, SE - 551 11 Jönköping, Sweden.