Insights and Outlooks: career learning in the final years of compulsory school

ABSTRACT

This article reports from a Danish research and development project on career learning in compulsory school. The aim of the project was to broaden the perspective on education and the world of work among pupils in the final years of compulsory school through career learning activities based on experience-based learning and reflection. To that end, teachers and guidance practitioners worked together with VET-schools, upper secondary schools and local companies in order for the pupils to both experience and sense different educational and occupational opportunities and systematically reflect on these experiences in connection with the subjects of the school and the pupils’ own self-insight. This article follows the pupils’ and teachers’ response to the type of career learning activities they took part in. A main finding is that the participating pupils experienced a change in their attitude towards VET-programmes and trade to a more positive view. Moreover, that this change seems to be based in the career learning approach on which the teachers and career guidance professionals founded the project activities, focusing on preparation, adaption and reflection. Additionally, that the career learning approach supported curiosity and openness in the pupils’ process of choosing upper secondary education.

KEYWORDS:

• Career learning
• career theory
• VET
• educational choice
• transition

Introduction

This article reports from a Danish research and development project on career learning in compulsory school. The article presents experiences and reactions of pupils and teachers to taking part in career learning activities focused on widening the pupils’ perspectives on vocational training and education (VET). Through an analysis of these qualitative data, the article discusses how teachers and career guidance professionals through a career learning focus can work with the pupils’ curiosity and openness towards VET.

The article is a section of a larger study that is published in Danish in Poulsen, Thomsen, Buhl, and Hagmayer (2016).

Both young people and society are challenged in the transition from compulsory school to post-compulsory education in Denmark.

Thus, only 18% of the youth cohort that left grade 9 (age 15) in 2016 opted for a VET-programme, whereas 73% applied for upper secondary school. (Ministry of Education, 2016) Projections of this educational pattern indicate that Denmark will be short of more than 30.000 skilled persons in the workforce by 2020.

The reasons for this are manifold. Research points to a lack of placements (as the Danish VET education is a dual system, where school periods alternate with apprenticeships) as a causal explanation for both rejections of VET as a possibility after compulsory school and for dropout from VET (Louw & Katznelson, 2014; Nielsen et al., 2013). Other main reasons for rejecting VET as an educational opportunity seem to be the reputation of VET and lack of knowledge of VET and the career possibilities with a VET background among pupils, parents and other actors (teachers and career guidance professionals as the most central). VET is considered low prestigious compared to upper secondary school, thus upper secondary school becomes the preferred choice for both young people and parents. (Dyssegaard, Egeberg, Steenberg, Tiftikci, & Vestergaard, 2014)

Among pupils, studies show lack of knowledge of both the educational system in Denmark and the world of work, especially when it comes to VET-programs and vocational occupation, which results in unfounded prejudices against VET-programs, VET-schools and careers in trade. (Dyssegaard et al., 2014; Juul & Pless, 2015).

The question of creating enough placements in private and public companies is to a large degree of a political and economic nature and is not likely to be solved by teachers or career guidance professionals in compulsory school. The questions of prestige and knowledge of VET, however, can be, if not solved, at least addressed in school, before the pupils make their choice of post-compulsory education.

The project “Insights & Outlooks”

To the end of counteracting the prejudices and lack of knowledge concerning VET, the national organisation Local Government Denmark and the Danish Teachers’ Union funded a project called “Insights and Outlooks. Career learning in the final years of compulsory school” [in Danish: Udsyn i udskolingen], that focused on how pupils in grade 7 to 9 (age 13–15) can obtain more knowledge and experience with vocational education and training, occupation and the job market through experience-based learning. The assumption of the project was that pupils, who experience more tangible meetings with post-compulsory education and with the job market, together with a stronger emphasis on reflection over these meetings; build a stronger basis for durable career choices, both in the forthcoming situation and in a lifelong perspective. (Guichard, 2001; Hughes, Mann, Barnes, Baldauf, & McKeown, 2016; Irving, 2015)

To that end, teachers and guidance practitioners worked together with VET-schools, upper secondary schools and local companies in order for the pupils to both experience and sense different educational and occupational opportunities and systematically reflect on these experiences in connection with the subjects of the school and the pupils’ own self-insight. (Fremfærd, 2014)

With this phrasing of the project, the focus was directed at possible actions within school and classes towards the prejudices and low prestige of VET. Thus, the project did not directly take other explanations of the declining interest in VET programs into account, for instance the lack of placements or poor study environment. On the one hand, the project can be criticised for not considering these explanations in working to enhance the prestige and interest in VET, since they seem to explain an important part of the decline in VET students (Dyssegaard et al., 2014; Louw & Katznelson, 2014; Nielsen et al., 2013). On the other hand, the target group of the project was teachers and pupils in the final years of compulsory school, and the primary interest was in discovering what can actually be done regarding the interest and learning about VET within this group and this phase of compulsory school. The aim of the project, thus, was not to dismiss the importance of other factors in the current VET crisis in Denmark. Moreover, it was to explore how a piece of this broad problem can be developed and challenged through career learning interventions in compulsory school.

Thirteen pilot projects took part of the overall project, covering 17 different schools nationwide, approx. 65 forms, 1400 pupils and 70 teachers. In addition, more than 70 local companies and a large number of institutions of post-compulsory education and youth guidance counsellors.

The project was based on a career learning theory that defines the process of making qualified choices as a matter of learning. Bill Law’s theory on career learning contributed with the fundamental framework for understanding this process in four levels of learning: 1) sensing, 2) shifting 3) focusing, and 4) understanding (Law, 1996, 1999, 2001)

Seen through these four levels of learning, a successful choice of education in grade 7 to 9 has to be built upon the pupils’ very concrete meeting with post-compulsory education and the world of work. The meeting must be prepared properly and give the pupils the opportunity of sensing and experiencing the education, and it must be object for adaption and reflection afterwards in order for the pupils to sort out, focus and understand the meeting. (Law, 1999, 2001)

Thus, the projects focused on how to further develop methods and structures for cooperation between the final years of compulsory school, VET schools, upper secondary schools, and the labour market in order to enable the pupils to progress through all four stages of learning in Law’s theory. Thereby strengthening both the inner and outer learning motivation of the pupils. (Pless, Katznelson, Hjort-Madsen, & Nielsen, 2015)

Theory behind the project

A condition for the local projects was that they had to design their career learning activities informed by Bill Law’s theory of career learning (1999, 2001). Two rationales were behind this decision:

1. A main objective of the “Insights & Outlooks” project was to provide teachers with something more than best practice, actual examples and fixed concepts to help them design qualified and meaningful career learning activities. One way was to provide the teachers with a theoretical inspiration and foundation against which the activities in the local projects could be continuously discussed and analysed.

2. The choice of Bill Law’s career learning theory was based on the position that the progressive learning model of the theory, formulated on the background of Law’s research in English schools (Law, 1996, 1999), would be recognisable for professional teachers who did not know a lot about career and career theory, but are experts in learning.

In articles in the 1990s and 2000s, Law put the question what kind of learning and which set of skills are the basis for action, for instance, to make competent choices about career. This was phrased as New DOTS (Law, 1999), where he explains the high complexity of career learning and describes four progressive stages in the career learning process.

1. Sensing – enough to go on Seeing and hearing things; Framing them – in lists, maps and stories.

2. Sifting – useful order Making comparisons so that likeness and unlikeness form patterns; Using the resulting similarities and dissimilarities to form categories.

3. Focusing – important to me understanding that other people’s points of view are different from my own; arranging what I know, to show how my point of view is different from others.

4. Understanding – how things work explaining the effects of the previous action; anticipating the consequences of new action. (Law, 2001, p. 12)

That the stages are progressive means that the model can be used to understand which stage the career learner has reached, but also didactically to qualify the design of career learning activities so they are offered in a constructive order and support learning in several stages.

According to Law, it is critical that we recognise that making competent choices is something that is learned and something that requires support. (Law, 2001). Thus, a didactically well-planned preparation and adaption and processing of for instance a visit to an education or a company is equally as important as the experience itself. (Poulsen et al., 2016).

Law’s career learning theory must be seen as a framework for didactical thinking, and not a rigid model of learning that proscribes certain fixed activities in order to gain progression in career learning (Law, 2001; Poulsen et al., 2016). Thus, the different stages in Law’s didactic model allow for many different learning activities that could be directed at different learning styles.

Community-interaction-theory

Law (1999, 2001, 2009) connects the development of career learning skills within the individual with the importance of communities. He describes how credible and valued communities make up special habitats for career learning. Thus, communities like family or friends, a valued leisure activity together with others, or a class in school where the individual thrive and is happy to participate, are significant contexts for learning. (Law, 2009). A successful training period or bridging course can also become a community where career learning takes place – arenas for career learning.

Law (2009) explains how these communities support learning through the transmission of different influences between the members of the community. Law lists five modes of influence that are transmitted.

1. Expectations – cues, pressures, and enticements.

2. Feedback – images that people can receive of themselves by their participation in groups.

3. Support – reinforcements and encouragements that group-membership can entail.

4. Modelling – flesh-and-blood examples, which offer specific targets for identification to members of the group.

5. Information – communication of impressions, images and data, which people distil from a conversation in the groups. (Law, 2009, p. 17–18)

In the project discussed in this article, Law’s description of how valued and credible communities create arenas for career learning entailed an emphasis on the class as a meaningful learning arena and what is needed to secure that the class becomes such a valued and credible arena. Law’s concept of community-interaction formed the basis of organisation of and cooperation on career learning in compulsory school.

Methods

The research connected with the project “Insights & Outlooks” was interested in exploring how pupils and teachers responded to the change in focus that career learning-based activities brought into school and career guidance activities. Moreover, the research focused on exploring how teachers and career guidance professionals can support curiosity and openness towards especially VET among the pupils, through career learning activities.

To that aim, the researchers compiled reports and evaluations of local projects, collected data across the local projects and put up a research question that was capable of covering the complexity of the many projects. (Dahler-Larsen, 2013). This lead to the following research question:

How do pupils experience the encounter with career learning activities in concrete educational and vocational contexts, and what are the responses of pupils and teachers of taking part in such activities?

When collecting the empirical data the focus was on the six projects that had the highest degree of completion (or success) in organising the projects in a career learning perspective. These six projects were examined thoroughly through individual semi-structured interviews with randomly selected pupils from grade 7–9, career guidance professionals, teachers, parents, representatives of VET and local companies involved in the local projects. (Dahler-Larsen, 2013; Poulsen et al., 2016; Wengraf, 2001)

The six selected projects were geographically diverse;

• one was situated in a well off part of a major city

• two were situated in middle-class neighbourhoods in two provincial towns

• two were situated in rural, lower middle-class neighbourhoods

• one was situated in a middle class-lower middle-class neighbourhood in and just outside a larger provincial town

No comprehensive analyses of background data regarding socioeconomic, gender, ethnic and geographical recruitment in respect to the participating schools were carried out. However, the six highlighted projects had a reasonable distribution of geographic and socioeconomic background from the perspective of the researchers.

Eighteen pupils in grade 7–9 (three from each project), 12 teachers (two from each project) and 12 collaborators (two from each project; career guidance professionals, parents, VET-teachers, local companies, dependant on the focus of the respective project) were interviewed for approx. 45 minutes each.

The interviews were guided by the overall analytic research question stated above, and the analysis of the interviews resulted in the identification of different themes in regard to the pupils’ experiences and the responses of pupils and teachers.

Each of the local projects were also obliged to send in a final report on their project, documenting the activities and cooperation they had made, and evaluating their project. These reports were also a central part of the data. (Poulsen et al., 2016).

Thus, the research does not say anything about the actual choices of post-compulsory education that lied ahead of the pupils in (typically) one, two or 3 years after the end of the project. Neither does it say anything about the actual behaviour of the pupils that afterwards did choose a VET-programme – whether or not they were prone to not drop out as an effect of the career learning activities prior to their choice of education. What the research does say something about, however, is how the pupils experienced taking part in career learning activities and how they reflect on themselves in regards to education and work life after taking part in career learning activities.

Analysis

This article focuses on just one of the identified themes from the qualitative analysis, namely the pupils’ and teachers’ experiences of bias against VET as opposed to the pupils’ own experiences.

Overall, the pupils manifestly express that they have gained a more positive view on VET-programs through the project. This change can be understood in three interconnected ways. These ways constitute the following subheadings; “A more positive view on VET”, “Prejudices and stereotypes” and “Challenging the educational hierarchy”.

A more positive view on VET

The interviews with the pupils show that they have many prejudices and imaginations about VET. That is not strange in itself. However, several pupils describe how the imaginations they associate with VET before their visit are primarily negative. The pupils also describe, how their participation in the career learning activities in the projects help nuance their prejudices and in most cases overcome those prejudices.

Bridging and introduction courses where pupils in grade 8 and 9 spend time at post-compulsory education are not new and have not been able to change the unfavourable imaginations about VET programs per se, since VET schools in Denmark are still fighting declining recruitment. In the “Insights & Outlooks” projects a lot of focus has been on both a thorough and thought-through preparation and adaptation and processing of the experiences and information the pupils have received in the time they have spent at the VET schools. Thus, what happens before and after the concrete stay or visit must be prioritised and emphasised when planning career learning activities in school.

In the projects from which the interviews investigated in this article have been derived, the preparation and adaptation of the concrete VET experiences were carried out in quite comparable ways. The main focus for all six projects were to avoid that the pupils’ visits and stays at VET programs or in local companies were experienced as singular events. Thus, all six projects worked in different ways to integrate the career learning activities into the ordinary curriculum. The following two examples illustrate this. At one school, where the concrete career learning activity was the pupils’ job shadowing of professionals at a local iron foundry, the preparation and adaptation was integrated in the curriculum of the subject of Danish. The overall theme of the course was a genre – a central theme derived from the national framework for the subject of Danish. This was transformed into learning activities where the pupils were asked to write job applications for different positions at the iron foundry. Later, the head of recruitment at the foundry carried through a number of mock job interviews with some of the pupils, while the rest of the class observed and reflected on the genre. During their stay at the foundry, the pupils wrote logs with reflections on the days and the experiences – a collection of logs that were processed afterwards with both a career perspective and a genre perspective in their Danish classes.

At another school, the classes in maths and physics were relocated at the local VET school and carried out by VET teachers. Thus, the classes both linked to the curriculum of the school and the pedagogy and perspective of VET programs. The classes were jointly planned by VET teachers and the usual maths and physics teachers of the pupils. During the course, the students made different concrete products, and those were presented to the pupils’ parents at a parents’ evening that was also held at the VET school. This also gave the parents a chance of actually visiting and being acquainted with a VET school. Afterwards, the products of the pupils were used as the starting point for a thematic focus on commercials in the subjects of Danish and English. The pupils worked with different understandings of commercials, with target groups and visual analysis and had to create a market campaign for their products produced at the VET school.

Overall, the focus of the preparation and adaptation of the career learning activities in the projects was to integrate career learning activities in the standard curriculum, integrating it into the themes and topics of the subjects and making it a natural function of working with the different subjects in school.

In the interviews, one pupil is asked if she has been thinking about something in a new way during the course she has taken part in, where the class has been working hands-on for some time with maths and physics in a VET-school. She explains that as a pupil in grade 7 you normally think that if you do not attend upper secondary school after grade 9, then you are considered stupid, but that the hands-on activities “ … also opened the thought of going to VET a bit.” (Silje, grade 7, l. 124).

The same pupil explains that before she would think for instance of a blacksmith, but now she thinks that this person could be an apprentice and that within the blacksmith profession you can find a number of different jobs and that you can educate yourself further. This is something she did not know before the project. Thus, the career learning activities had made it possible for her, in the notions of Law, to go from sensing to sifting, from exploring to putting the impressions in a useful order.

Several pupils also tell of new perspectives and insights into the world of VET. One pupil, who worked as a trainee in a kitchen in a big company for a day said, “I think the Social and Health Care Training Program (a Danish VET program) at the VET school sounded really exciting, because I like to deal with people [.] if I were not going to upper secondary school, I would have chosen this program.” (Mira, grade 9, l. 135). Furthermore, the pupil explains that the career learning activities especially have taught her “that all people must be respected as different”. (Mira, grade 9, l.135). In this case, the career learning activities and the accompanying reflections has lifted the pupil to the level of focusing; discussing with herself and others what is important to her and understanding that other things can be important to others.

However, some prejudices are so conspicuous that they can make the choice of a VET program after grade 9 difficult. A pupil who has taken part in an introduction course at a VET school says:

“Rather often I am told, ”Why? You have the marks. Then why are you not going to upper secondary school?’ But that is not what I want. I really want a VET education where I can also use my hands, because that is what I really want. But then they are like, “What! You cannot be serious!” They think that especially when you have good marks, you have to use them. They do not think that you are using them if you take a VET.” (Viktor, grade 7, l. 197)

Furthermore, it is his experience that those of his classmates who do poorer academically do not have to defend their choice of VET in the same way as him. In addition, this pupil thinks that the career learning activity at the VET school “has contributed in a positive way, because before, a lot of people looked down on it.”

Interestingly, this pupil seems to be able to reflect on his own choices at the level of “understanding” in Law’s career learning model, as well as reflecting on the choices and arguments of others. He sees his own development in the meetings with the VET school, and he furthermore processes the development of his peers. Moreover, he is able to distinguish between the development of his peers towards VET and the negative responses on VET he receives from other communities. In strengthening his own choice of VET, he seems to develop an understanding of which credible and valued communities that can support him in his desire to take a VET.

Prejudices and stereotypes

The prejudices and stereotypes do not only belong to the pupils. One pupil explains; “Then our teacher told us, that it [a specific workplace] was a lot of work with the hands, a bit with the brain and a bit with both.” (Emma, grade 7, l. 41). Here we meet a classic stereotypical division between hand and head that finds its way into the teacher’s narrative about what the class is about to experience in a workplace. A division that, probably inadvertently, will contribute to the pupils’ own categorisation into being either good with your hands or your head. The example shows how significant adults such as teachers also play an important part in shaping the values of what Law calls credible and valued communities.

As stressed by Wikstrand and Lindberg (2015), it is important to take the professionals to a place where they can observe themselves as producers of norms, thus having the possibility of catching unsuitable stereotypes about education and vocation. As the following quotation shows, also parents are producers of norms in the way they talk about education and job.

“Well, I have been talking a lot with my mother, like, it is also she who helps me, and then she said that it would certainly be stupid if I took a VET program and could not use it for anything after all, or upper secondary school, you can always use that, right?” (Johannes, grade 9, l. 82)

Obviously, prejudices and stereotypes are produced across all the contexts that the pupils are part of. This also means that the pupils can influence each other among themselves in the communities they are part of and wish to be part of. (Law, 2009; Skovhus, 2018; Thomsen, 2012)

In many of the interviews, the pupils voice surprise at the educational thoughts of their classmates. “Yes, well, I thought that a lot more were going to upper secondary school, but quite a few are going to VET. And I think that it is since they have learned this [the career learning activities], because it is less school, and many are tired of going to school.” (Mira, grade 9, l. 183).

The quote from Mira seems to indicate a career learning progression towards the level of focusing, since she is able to reflect on the viewpoints and choices of others and respect them as equally valuable as her own. As Law (2001, 2009)) points out, valued and credible communities constitute good arenas for career learning. Thus, there are good reasons for making the communities of classmates places where you can talk about and exchange ideas, knowledge and positions on education and work.

Challenging the educational hierarchy

A survey from 2017 confirms the findings in this project: upper secondary schools are more prestigious than VET schools. Fifty-three per cent of the Danish population find upper secondary school prestigious or very prestigious. For VET programs, the number is 24%. Forty-four per cent of parents would prefer that their child went to upper secondary school; 12% that their child went to a VET program. (Kudahl, 2017)

This problem has been addressed by VET schools, career guidance professionals, schools, politicians, civil service, researchers, etc. for quite some time in Denmark, and a lot of activities have come into existence to counter this view of VET programs as not attractive. Examples could be “Skills” – a national championship for VET students, different campaigns targeted at young people, their parents, teachers, career guidance professionals, etc.; political initiatives such as reinforcing a practical perspective in grade 7, 8 and 9, and different research and development projects such as this one.

However, it seems to be quite challenging to change the educational hierarchy and the negative valorisation of VET by children and parents. It is also apparent in many of the local projects in “Insights & Outlooks”. Several projects are occupied with the question of how they can work with this problem in order to create a broader outlook and a widening of opportunities for their pupils. Also, because they are interested in having the pupils who want to go to VET-school feel capable and recognised for their choice of education. In a local project, the pupils spent four days at a VET school in two different departments where they had to make a concrete product in connection with their subjects in school. Here, the teacher who accompanied the pupils responds to a question about whether any pupils acted surprisingly.

“Yes, actually, the pupils also surprised each other, because several of the more academically strong pupils were really challenged, when they were handed a piece of tool, and for many of the others, it was really the other way around. And several of the strong ones said that they could never become capable enough to become a carpenter. And I really think this is cool, that they come to think in this way, because then they acknowledge the job more than they had actually done before, I think.” (Agnes, teacher, l. 100).

In this project, teachers as well as pupils can go home with a new understanding of who are “capable” and what is demanded in a VET program. Thus, in this instance the local project seems to succeed in challenging the prejudice that some educational programs are superior to others, and that academic capability is harder than practical capability. Moreover, the career learning process as described by Bill Law seems to be influencing not only the pupils, but also the teachers, who seem to be both sensing, sifting and focusing their experiences and gaining a new respect and understanding of other people’s (i.e. their pupils’) point of view.

One pupil explains that the career learning activities away from school, where the pupils do other things together with the teachers than they normally do, contribute to the teachers learning to know the pupils in another way. (Emma, grade 7, l. 311). Perhaps, an increased common knowledge between teachers and pupils could even be instrumental in making different occupations respected and in that way make different educational choices respected. One teacher describes his thoughts on this perspective in continuation of the visit of his class to a VET school:

“I think that many of them would have improved their capabilities for choosing and dared choose something that would suit them well, if they had been exposed for this [career learning activities] through all their schooldays. We used to focus a lot on other aspects of the process of choosing. All the things about personal interests and gender and social background and prestige in the education are key factors. But then, if you suddenly say on your own initiative that you want to be a blacksmith, then a lot of the others will be ignorant of what that means, instead of everybody having experienced what it is like. Then, it is perhaps more accepted to be a blacksmith”. (Thomas, teacher, l. 308).

Once again, the question of creating meaningful, credible and valued communities where information and ideas about education and vocation can be discussed seems to be essential for broadening the views on education and breaking down the educational hierarchy. (Law, 2009; Thomsen, 2012)

Discussion

The process of increasing the interest in VET-programs is long and complicated, and the “Insights & Outlooks” project can point to no easy or quick solution. However, the experiences from this project show that something can be done in order to stimulate the curiosity among pupils towards VET-programs and to widen the educational and occupational perspectives for pupils through career learning activities in school including real and tangible experiences with VET-programs and trades.

The results of this project point to career learning theory as a strong foundation for organising teaching and guidance on education and vocation. A foundation that stresses not only the concrete meeting with education and jobs, but also the systematic reflexive processes that lie before and after the meeting, which incorporate the experiences as progressive learning. However, a relevant critical question to this conclusion is which underlying assumptions about learning that lie behind concepts of career learning and which consequences they have for the pupils. This question is worthy of more discussion – a discussion that lies outside the focus of this article and is raised among others by Skovhus (2018) and Sultana (2012, 2013)). One aspect that could be discussed is whether Law’s theory makes too sharp a divide between the individual and the world, primarily allowing the surrounding world to “transfer” information to the individual, rather than seeing the relationship between world and individual as something more complex. This is the point of Skovhus (2018) who sees learning as situated and the individual as socially embedded in a historical-material world.

Another critical perspective could be whether the VET-programs in the collaboration with schools and teachers offered “glamorous” experiences with the goal of promoting precisely their program and their school. Moreover, that the pupils if being only shown this façade will be prone to dropping out if they submit to enrol in a VET-program where the reality is often marked by scarcity of resources. This is a quite legitimate question that needs to be examined in future research. The focus in this project was not the dropout-challenge in VET, neither in the work phase, nor in the research phase. However, even if VET schools obviously want to show the pupils in the final years of compulsory school the potential and excitement of their specific programs and trades, the collaboration in most of the projects were more than singular “promotion days”, allowing for the opportunity for the pupils to both experience different aspects and perspectives of VET programs and to interact with VET-students in their normal days and circumstances. The fact remains that for real career learning to take place, it is important to make sure that the experiences of the pupils are as close to the normal conditions in VET as possible.

This qualitative study of exploring the encounters of career learning activities and the responses of pupils and teachers has not been matched with background information on socioeconomic or ethnic background or gender of the participating schools. Thus, it has not been possible to highlight and discuss the possible impact of these factors on the responses of the pupils. The pupils are in this respect treated as a more or less homogenous group, even though they obviously possess different kinds of needs and potentials in respect to career learning. Studies that discuss the challenges and possibilities of career learning related to different groups and background would, therefore, be both needed and valued. However, in spite of this necessary problematisation, a case can be made for the value of looking at the group of pupils as a whole. Skovhus (2018), Skovhus (2016)) shows in her dissertation how career learning activities and a career learning perspective are essential for both pupils from rural and lower middle-class backgrounds and pupils from city and higher middle class to upper-class backgrounds, when the aim of the activities is to widen the educational possibilities of pupils in the final years of compulsory school. Secondly, a central perspective in Law’s career learning theory, as highlighted all through this article, is the community perspective, where career learning is understood as processes that are quite dependent on communities of peers, and where career learning activities, therefore, are aimed at and facilitated for groups and classes of students.

As mentioned in the methods section the analytic focus in this research project has been on the six projects that had the highest degree of completion (or success) in organising the projects in a career learning perspective. This choice was made with reference to the available resources for research in the project, and because both researchers and project owners above all were interested in exploring impacts and potentials in activities based on career learning theory. This does not mean that the remaining seven projects were failures; indeed, data from the seven projects also inform the final publication (Poulsen et al., 2016) primarily in the form of final reports from the projects. Nonetheless, these projects were not methodologically explored. With another focus and more resources for research, an investigation into the remaining seven projects could potentially have discovered more obstacles and challenges in arranging career learning situations in the final years of compulsory school. However, two central problems throughout the seven projects made us count them out as objects for further research. First and foremost, that the seven projects to a various degree did not succeed in building their proposed activities and intervention on career learning theory focusing on preparation, adaption and reflection or connect the interventions with the subjects in school. Secondly, that (some of) the seven projects did not succeed in cooperating with institutions, schools or companies outside school.

As this research and development project has been founded on qualitative research done during and immediately after the project period, we primarily understand the results of the project from within the pupils’ and teachers’ own experiences and reflections. For obvious reasons, this means that we cannot say anything about the long-term implications of this project, and this was not the scope of the project either. However, to develop and understand the impacts of career learning activities in school, it would have been beneficial to examine the actual behaviour of the pupils that took part in this project and see if their more positive view on VET actually carries on when they choose their post-compulsory education. Alternatively, if the bias against VET has been too strong and too persistent to be overcome by career learning activities. Especially for the youngest group of participants, the seventh-graders, who will encounter more career learning activities in grades eight and nine, this remains an interesting question. A question that this study and this project are not able to answer due to the conditions of the study, but a question that is important to explore in future career learning research.

The experiences of this project, moreover, indicate that a priority of the research community should be to understand how curiosity and positive attitudes towards VET-programs can be maintained all through the final years of compulsory school, so that VET-programs actually remain real educational and occupational opportunities for the pupils.

This is not to say that the primary responsibility for changing the reputation of VET lies with teachers and career guidance professionals; indeed, they have no control over public investments in VET schools, nor how the discourse surrounding VET and VET-schools are framed in the public sphere. However, in a crisis such as the Danish, with alarmingly few applicants for VET-programs, everybody has a role in changing the attitude towards VET. Moreover, teachers and career guidance professionals can be helped with their part in this task, if they, as this study shows, stimulate the curiosity and reflection among pupils through career learning activities.

Acknowledgments

The research for this paper was financially supported through a grant from Fremfærd, a cooperation on development of the public sector. The research process in the project ‘Insights & Outlooks’ was carried out by a team of four colleagues: Professor MSO Rie Thomsen, Aarhus University, Associate professor Rita Buhl, VIA University College, Research assistant Ida Andrén Hagmayer, Aarhus University and myself. The analytical perspectives and ideas presented in this article are based on our mutual work in the research process, and this article could not have been written without their inspirational work. I am also much obliged to Professor Màrius Martínez Muñoz, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and the anonymous reviewers for insightful comments in the process. Any faults, misconceptions or misinterpretations however, are my own responsibility.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Local Government Denmark & The Danish Teachers' Union, under the programme Fremfærd.

Notes on contributors

Bo Klindt Poulsen

Bo Klindt Poulsen is a senior lecturer at VIA University College and a PhD fellow at Aarhus University in Denmark. He teaches at the Diploma and Master’s programme in career guidance. Among his research interests are organisation and professional development of career guidance, career guidance and social justice, and career guidance and philosophy.