Navigating the matrix: career development and the responsibilisation of employability in Australia

ABSTRACT

In this paper we seek to understand how structural, contextual and institutional conditions influence the construction of individual agency in career development policy. We focus on responsibilisation, the process by which responsibility for outcomes is transferred from the state to the individual, through a combination of policy actions and the framing of public discourse. We use Australia as a case study to examine how the state has recast its role in the creation and regulation of employment. We outline how the role of the state now involves guiding the citizen towards the “right choice", with individuals responsible for and active managers of risk in the labour market. To determine the complex narratives around agency, we examine the assumptions embedded in some current Australian government career guidance websites, to highlight how jobseeker autonomy, self-direction, agency, and self-management are framed. The implications for socially just career development provision are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Responsibilisation
• career development
• policy
• inequalities
• social justice
• employability ‌

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For those unfamiliar with Australian slang, a bludger is “someone who relies on the efforts of other people and wants to have things without working for them” (Cambridge online dictionary). Dole refers to unemployment payments from the state.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Suzanne Rice

Suzanne Rice is the Associate Dean (Engagement) and the Deputy Director of the Assessment Research Centre at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her research interests focus on career development and youth transitions, motivations for teaching, and high stakes testing programs and their impact.

Mary Leahy

Dr Mary Leahy is based at the Continuing, Vocational and Educational Policy research hub within the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Australia. Mary has an extensive background in research and policy development, focussing on access to education and employment. Her research examines trade union education, educational and employment pathways, vocational education, gender and the philosophical underpinnings of social and economic policy.

Gosia Klatt

Gosia Klatt is an Associate Professor at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Australia. She has a political science background but her current academic and practical interests lie in the field of education policy in Australia and Europe. She researches youth transitions, education system transitions, education policy and governance. Her latest book with M. Milana and S. Vatrella was published in 2020 by Palgrave Macmillan and is entitled: Europe's Lifelong Learning Markets, Governance and Policy: Using an Instruments Approach. She is currently leading a Jean Monnet Module “Education Policy in Practice (EPP) – European education policy and national systems” co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union (2020–2023).