New school for the old school: career guidance and counselling in education

These are critical times for career guidance and counselling in education. Wherein the twentieth century emphasis was on training well-socialised citizens and well-trained employees with technical skills (Cedefop, 2010), the twenty-first century attention is focused on active citizenship (Veugelers, 2009), intrinsic motivation (Grugulis & Vincent, 2009; Payne, 2000), the ability to work together (Leckey & McGuigan, 1997), and proactive adaptability and resilience to changing circumstances (Hillage, Regan, Dickson, & McLoughlin, 2002). Prerequisites for these so-called twenty-first century skills are self-awareness and self-directedness of students (Savickas et al., 2009; Schulz, 2008). In education and educational policy, self-direction has until today often been conceived of as ‘self-regulation’ on the basis of individuals taking more responsibility, being in control and the development of metacognition.

The self-directedness of the twenty-first century, however, requires much more of individuals than this. Individuals are expected that they themselves formulate life goals and take action to make progress on these throughout the life course (Bimrose, Brown, Barnes, & Hughes, 2011; Savickas et al., 2009). In this context, ‘feed-forward’ processes are key, whereby the aim is not to reduce discrepancies between a current reality and what is desired by prescriptive methods, but to start a learning process on how to deal with these discrepancies. From a career perspective self-direction comes down to the development of career learning (Law, 1996), a career narrative (Savickas, 2011) and a career identity (Meijers & Lengelle, 2012). It includes how people learn for action, and – more particularly – for sustainable action and how they discover their own life themes. At the same time, it is important that careers guidance and counselling stimulates critical thinking among students: in uncertain times students need explanations, not only about their ‘inner world’ but also about the world they have to live in, especially because not everyone has an opportunity to live the life they wish (Law, 2014). Career teachers, guidance practitioners and counsellors have to create a productive equilibrium between a constructivist approach (in which they co-create a career narrative together with their students) and a ‘traditional’ teacher role that provides students with the information they need in order to thrive and survive in a ‘risk society’ (Beck, 1992).

These trends are argued (Law, 2015a) to rebalance the relative importance of career development and career management. While ideas of career development focus attention on what career workers can bring to clients, ideas of career management speak of responses that clients make to all sources of influence. Also, notions of career adaptability and resilience within and outside of the academic community feature prominently in career education, guidance and counselling discourse. Contemporary conditions point to the resulting need for specific elements in the expansion of careers work. In particular the field needs to develop ways of enabling students to prepare sufficiently for endemic and accelerating change, and to do so in relation to both their claim on citizenship and their fulfilment in work-life.

Conventional ideas concerning life themes draw on personal constructs. They are engaged by career workers to psychologically frame and shape the way free-standing individuals develop their careers. However, a wider understanding of ‘career’ draws on social constructs (Law, 2015b). A primary sociological source characterises such practice and process as the formation of ‘habitus’. It understands the inhabitance of location to be a major influence in the habits of mind its people embrace (Bourdieu, 1991).

A learning environment that makes ‘critical feedforward’ possible, is different from the twentieth century learning environment in several key ways (Kuijpers, Meijers, & Gundy, 2011):

• education has to be practice instead of theory driven – real-life situations should determine the direction of what is learned; theory (i.e. explanations) should be offered where and when needed in the context of those real-life situations.

• education must become dialogical in nature – the meaning of real-life experiences in the context of future work roles become progressively more clear as a result of a dialogue with others.

• education needs to provide space for students – to have their say in decision-making when it comes to the form and content of their own learning and personal development.

Despite the need for a new learning environment, neo-liberal educational politics emphasise accountability, standardisation and high-stakes testing resulting in a narrow view of what counts as teaching and learning (Franciosi, 2004; Hargreaves, 2003; Lipman, 2004; Ravitch, 2010). Teachers, managers and principals are increasingly required to focus on productivity and economic agendas, alongside the social, cultural and moral purpose of education. There are growing concerns among teachers and students alike about the added-value of their respective investments. This growing concern results partly in a learnification of education (Biesta, 2010): some teachers and students do not know the ‘why’ and ‘for what’ anymore and – as a result – act instrumentally towards each other. But it also results in growing discontent and frustration among teachers (Ballet, Kelchtermans, & Loughran, 2006) and students (Walkey, McClure, Meyer, & Weir, 2013). Many students do not find their course of studies stimulating or inspiring resulting in high drop-out rates. Recent findings in London show that just under a quarter of Year 12 (level 3) starters ‘dropped out’ of their sixth form before the age of 18, particularly for those on vocational courses (Hodgson & Spours, 2014). According to Dutch statistics high drop-out rates cost society 5.7 billion euros per year (Borghans, Coenen, Golsteyn, Hijgen, & Sieben, 2008). That is why there is a serious opportunity for the further development of career guidance and counselling in schools, colleges, universities and other community settings.

The implementation of up-to-date guidance and counselling in education must not be seen as something separated from educational reform. There is a critical tension between progressive and regressive tendencies in both education and career work. Their case for reform requires careful attention leading to innovative solutions:

• how to combine critical thinking (‘how reliable and usefully do you know?’) and the development of career narrative?

• significant learning presupposes pain (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969) but too much pain will cause avoidance instead of learning. How to create a school culture in which emotions are not avoided but are seen as the starting point of significant learning?

• career teachers are confronted with two conflicting role demands (between ‘feedback’ and ‘feed-forward’) which demands that they have both a system orientation as well as a student-focused attitude. How can these conflicting role demands be harmonized?

• teachers are confronted by conflicting demands with regards to qualities: on the one hand traditional demands that are defined primarily in output terms (e.g. less drop out) and on the other hand demands to be focused on the guidance process itself. A solution to this can probably not be found by setting out ‘empty’ (i.e. without theoretical underpinning) guidance roles (NICE, 2014).

• how to prevent the above mentioned problems from being ‘solved’ by outsourcing them? The persistent efforts by politicians to go towards marketisation of career guidance have proven that this is a far from an imaginary tendency.

• how to prevent the above mentioned problems from being ‘solved’ by making individual teachers responsible for delivering and/or sharing career guidance and counselling responsibilities? Initiating a collective learning process in schools seems essential; for that new forms of leadership seem to be needed.

• schools are traditionally ‘turned inward’; for the creation of a strong career-learning environment; however, a cooperation between industry and schools on the basis of shared responsibility is required. Such cooperation is difficult to fully realise because it requires a taking leave of twentieth-century cooperation based on ‘divided’ responsibility. Such cooperation cannot be forced but it will also not happen without effort.

This special issue International Symposium is the first in a two-part series. It begins with a thought provoking article by Hearne which sets out the process and lessons learned from a whole-school approach to counselling in Ireland. She draws upon recent findings and illustrates ways in which educationalists working with guidance counsellors must co-develop and adapt their practices according to the context in which they operate. Andrews and Hooley focus on strategies designed to recognise and support the role of career leaders, particularly middle managers in English secondary schools. They indicate there is much scope for continuous professional training that draws upon relevant theory, research and practice. In contrast, Draaisma et al., focus on the concept of building a strong learning environment. They draw on results from a longitudinal study in the Netherlands which highlight the need for greater dialogue between teachers–students and teachers–managers. They emphasise this can be achieved successfully when some form of meaningful ‘collective learning’ takes places, supported by strong leadership within institutions. Building upon this theme, den Boer and Hoeve draw on their detailed research on the art of reflective career conversations in schools in the Netherlands. They argue a process of ‘reculturing’ is necessary in twenty-first century schooling and suggest the identity of teachers needs to be fully considered as part of this process. Whilst there are clear life-design features underpinning guidance and counselling in schools across Europe and internationally, Leach’s article provides some reflections on graduates’ experiences of employment and career enactment. He challenges life-design assumptions by arguing that guidance cannot compensate for existing inequalities in society. Gough provides a policy critique of the challenges faced by tutors in higher education when it comes to the training and development of career guidance practitioners and educators in England. Finally, Mann offers compelling research insights to schooling and labour market demands. He sets out challenges and opportunities bringing about structural change in Britain’s schools, particularly when it comes to considering the role of employers in twenty-first century schooling.

In short, there is a need for innovative and sustainable solutions relating to trends originating within and outside of career work and education but affecting both:

• new thinking, practice and research are constantly updating and outdating the basis on which career work and education unfolds. They both need readily to access these trends and to influence the terms in which they are implemented.

• there is a geo-political background in which governments and global commerce direct their influences, demands and requirements for teaching, counselling and career work.

• there is a need for strategies for defensibly managing and responding to such pressures (by focusing not only on the requirements of the labour market but on the underlying discourses that impact on the development of the labour market).

• while the interest of commerce, investors and shareholders must feature in the conduct of education and career work, it is also the case that interests based in civil society are articulated and asserted, so that professionals draw upon their expertise and other legitimate interests from key informants, including students, parents and teachers.

Together the articles in this part-one special issue encourage us to step back and think more about what constitutes effective twenty-first schooling. This also provides further stimuli to consider how and where can career guidance and counselling policies, research and practice make a positive contribution to enriching individual’s lives. We look forward to sharing more findings in the next forthcoming series of articles in this International Symposium Series.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.