Prolonged transitions to uncertain destinations: The implications for careers guidance

Abstract

A set ofEuro-wide trends is discussed: the prolongation of young people's transitions, the individualisation of their biographies, and the greater uncertainty of their futures. It is argued that youth's new condition is currently being normalised throughout Europe, and that this process is aided by appropriate careers guidance which must be recurrent, customised, and couched in terms of possibilities. Problems that are posed for young people and their advisers in Britain, and in some other countries, by the persistent jobs deficit, the inability of some families to provide the support that youth's new condition requires, and the fact that some forms of vocational education and training are most likely to be dead-ends, are identified.