Non-participation in guidance: An opportunityfor development?

Rie Thomsen

Received: 2 April 2013 / Accepted: 20 December 2013 / Published online: 10 January 2014

� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Abstract This article discusses how new opportunities for guidance can emerge

from an analysis of the interplay between the participation (or lack of participation)

of the individuals in career guidance, and the career guidance practitioner’s

response. The article suggests critical psychology as a framework for career guid-

ance research and presents the analytical categories of ‘‘participation’’ and ‘‘conduct

of everyday life’’ as means to analyse the dialectical relationship between partici-

pant and structure, as well as individual and society. Finally, it is argued that flexible

career practices that adapt to the needs of participants have the potential effect of

greater social justice.

Resume. La non-participation dans le conseil en orientation: une occasion dedeveloppement. Cet article discute la maniere dont de nouvelles opportunites pour

l’orientation peuvent emerger de l’analyse de l’interaction entre la participation (ou

la non- participation) des individus dans le conseil en orientation et la reponse des

praticiens. L’article suggere d’utiliser la psychologie critique comme cadre pour la

recherche en orientation et presente les categories analytiques de ‘‘participation’’ et

‘‘conduites de la vie de tous les jours’’ comme des moyens d’analyser la relation

dialectique entre le participant et la structure, aussi bien qu’entre l’individu et la

societe. Pour finir, il est soutenu que des pratiques de carriere flexibles qui

s’adaptent aux besoins des participants ont potentiellement l’effet d’accroıtre la

justice sociale.

Zusammenfassung. Nicht-Teilnahme an beruflicher Beratung—eine Chancezur Weiterentwicklung? Dieser Beitrag erortert, welche neuen Chancen zur

Gestaltung von Beratungsangeboten sich ergeben konnen, wenn man das

Zusammenspiel der Teilnahme (oder fehlender Teilnahme) von Menschen an

R. Thomsen (&)

Department of Education, Aarhus University, Tuborgvej 164, 2400 Copenhagen, Denmark

e-mail: riet@dpu.dk

123

Int J Educ Vocat Guidance (2014) 14:61–76

DOI 10.1007/s10775-013-9260-0

Beratungsangeboten untersucht. Als Bezugsrahmen fur die Beratungsforschung

wird die Kritische Psychologie vorgeschlagen, und die analytischen Kategorien der

‘Teilnahme‘und der ‘alltaglichen Lebensfuhrung‘werden als ein Mittel prasentiert,

um die dialektische Beziehung zwischen Teilnehmenden und Strukturen, ebenso

wie zwischen Individuum und Gesellschaft zu analysieren. Daraus wird die Sch-

lussfolgerung gezogen, dass flexible Beratungspraktiken, die sich den Bedurfnissen

der Teilnehmenden anpassen, potenziell auch einen Effekt fur mehr soziale Ger-

echtigkeit haben.

Resumen. La no participacion en Orientacion-Una oportunidad para elDesarrollo. Este artıculo explica como nuevas oportunidades para la orientacion

pueden surgir a partir de un analisis de la interaccion entre la participacion (o no

participacion) de los individuos en la orientacion profesional, y la respuesta del

propio orientador. El artıculo sugiere la Psicologıa Crıtica como marco para la

investigacion de la orientacion profesional y presenta las categorıas analıticas de

‘‘participacion’’ y ‘‘conducta de la vida cotidiana’’ como medio para analizar la

relacion dialectica entre los participantes y la estructura, ası como el individuo y la

sociedad. Por ultimo se argumenta que la practica flexible de las carreras que se

adaptan a las necesidades de los participantes consigue el potencial efecto de una

mayor justicia social.

Keywords Career guidance in communities � Critical psychology �Individualisation

Many articles in the International Journal for Educational and Vocational

Guidance open with a statement such as, ‘‘Satisfying and effective participation

by individuals in the world of work is a cornerstone for both a high quality personal

life and a successful society’’ (Vondracek, Ferreira, & Santos, 2010). Underpinning

such statements is the notion that career guidance can and should play a positive

role in the development of welfare societies (ELGPN, 2010), while equally

highlighting the pivotal relationship in careers (Thomsen, 2012a) between

individual participation (in education and work) and the development of societies.

According to Sultana, this exact relationship and the way in which it is

conceptualised in its philosophical grounding is significant for career research,

practise and policy—and is vital when it comes to suggesting, developing and

delivering socially just career guidance (Sultana, 2011, 2013).

In the case of Denmark, the relationship between individual and society is

reflected in the legislation on educational and vocational guidance for young people.

This legislation emphasises that the objective is to provide guidance that ensures

that the choice of education and vocation is of highest possible benefit for the

individual and for society. A closer analysis of the consequences of dualistic

descriptions (Lave, 2011) suggests that they firstly support the identification of

individuals whose actions are considered as potentially countering the interest

of society, and—in this case—pooling resources and targeting career guidance

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interventions (Thomsen, 2012a). As a consequence of this targeting, I would like to

draw attention as to potential paradoxes: targeting and thus, concentrating resources

on a few whos actions has been identified as countering the interests of society also

potentially neglects the many who would seek and/or benefit from career guidance

activities, both in terms of scope and diversity. Further, in Denmark, where there is

little tradition for using labour market information in career guidance, guidance

practises and practitioners are left to themselves to decide what actions would be in

the interest of society (ibid.). However, the relationship between individual actions

and societal development is the foundation upon which the field of career practise as

well as the field of career research is built. As a result, researchers continuously

discuss this relationship in policies, in empirical research, and in relation to the

methodologies, scientific approaches and theories underpinning research.

According to McMahon and Watson (2007), who outline a table that illustrates

two eras of career research (a modern era and a post-modern era), the role of

researchers in the modern era is characterised by being that of a ‘detached theory-

testing onlooker’,1 whereas the post-modern era researcher is described as an

interested, interpretive, procedure-testing participant observer. With regard to the

role of the participant in the research, they point to a shift from passive subject to

active participant. Finally, they describe a change in the research process from a

one-way mode directed by the researcher to a two-way interactive mode which is

more collaborative and discursive (McMahon & Watson, 2007, p. 172). Further-

more, McMahon and Watson argue that most career guidance practises remain in

the modern paradigm, whereas research practises are moving towards the post-

modern paradigm. Thus they fear that the gap between practise and research in

career guidance is widening. McMahon and Watson propose a constructivist

systems theory framework as a way of closing this gap. This article adds a

materialist, critical psychological framework to that proposal.

Theoretical framework

Critical Psychology

Critical Psychology, as presented in this article, recognises that participants in

career guidance change and modify guidance practise, and thereby change the

conditions under which guidance takes place. Critical Psychology places an

emphasis on understanding social practices from the standpoint of the subject

(Højholt, 2006; Holzkamp, 1972)—more particularly, of disadvantaged groups such

as users of psychotherapy, disadvantaged pupils and people with disabilities. It is

described as a psychology from below and within practises, and places an emphasis

on privileging the users’ voice and exploring empirically and analytically how

participants influence practises. The aim is to suggest new and fruitful ways of

developing practise. In order to explore the influence of participants on career

1 When describing the researcher’s role, McMahon and Watson cite Shotter (1992, p. 58).

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guidance practises, Critical Psychology is introduced as an analytical framework

and practise research as a methodology that allows for such analyses.

The German psychologist Klaus Holzkamp is considered one of the founders of

Critical Psychology. Through his works ‘Grundlegung der Psychologie’ (1983) and

‘Lernen—Subjektwissenschaftliche Grundlegung’ (1993) he develops a compre-

hensive set of analytical categories—some of which is introduced in this article.2

The reasons for the development of Critical Psychology are described by Osterkamp

and Schraube (2013) as a critique of the way in ‘… which psychology contributed,

in different areas of society, to ideologically justifying and stabilising given power

constellations’ (p. 3). The development of Critical Psychology also included a

critique of the more traditional approaches to the study of psychological

phenomena, with the term ‘traditional’ being taken to mean experimental,

quantitative studies of psychological phenomena and theories. The critique was

that the experimental, quantitative way of studying human beings, their actions and

problems and the way they act (with and without the effect of different

psychological interventions) did not consider the way in which they took part in

(or were able to take part in) society as a whole. The traditional form of psychology

was psychology without a world (Osterkamp & Schraube, 2013). By the time

Critical Psychology developed from the 1960s (and onwards), experimental,

quantitative studies were the dominating way of creating knowledge within the field

of psychology; and as Stead et al. show, in their review of articles on career

development, experimental design and quantitative analysis is the most frequent

research design when researchers create knowledge about career guidance today

(Stead, Perry, Munka, Bonnett, Shiban, & Care, 2012). In an experimental setting,

the influence of society and the influence on society are conceptualised as variables

if they are conceptualised at all. This method of studying phenomena might prove

useful if we need to test the effect of a specific intervention based upon a specific

method. But if the goal is to explore, understand and develop (new) theories about

people’s participation in career guidance and society, categories that allow us to

explore career guidance from the perspective of the individuals concerned are

needed. It is expected that a critical psychological framework offers the categories

for analysing participation and everyday life from the perspective of the individuals

taking part in career guidance activities. Thereby allowing us to explore and

understand what kind of development will meet participants’ needs and interests.

Research from the standpoint of the subject

Ideally speaking (from a critical psychological standpoint), researchers should take

up problems that are perceived as problems or dilemmas in the everyday lives of the

subjects concerned. It is suggested that this also makes Critical Psychology suitable

for the development of a socially just career guidance practise. Other scholars have

paid attention to research approaches that focus on problems experienced by

individuals for whom research practise and career guidance practise can make a

2 Most of Holzkamp’s work is available in German only but recently Schraube and Osterkamp translated

and published selected writings of Holzkamp in English (Schraube & Osterkamp, 2013).

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difference. Perry suggests a combined social action and mixed methods approach to

evaluate change at the individual and the contextual level (Perry, 2009). Valach and

Young suggest interdisciplinarity in vocational guidance research based on an

action theory perspective (Valach & Young, 2009). Both approaches include

individuals in the research processes, as McMahon and Watson suggested for career

guidance research in the postmodern era.

Practise research, which is one of the suggested methodologies in Critical

Psychology, seeks to include individuals in the research process as co-researchers

(Kousholt & Thomsen, 2012; Thomsen, 2012a). Being a co-researcher means that

the people involved in the practises that are being studied are encouraged to

investigate practise together with the researcher, for instance the practises of career

guidance. McMahon and Watson suggest a shift from a modern to a postmodern era

within career guidance research which also involves a shift from the study of

passive subjects to engaging with active participants in the research process

(McMahon & Watson, 2007).

Societal and individual life processes

According to Holzkamp, individual existence is always a partial aspect of social

life. In modern society we have divided the work that needs to be done in order to

maintain our lives and our society. This means that we depend on each other’s work

and efforts to maintain our own existence (Holzkamp, 1991). Therefore collective

interests (the interests of society) are linked to participation by other people in the

maintenance of our collective societal life conditions. This means that the problems

dealt with in both career development research and in career guidance practise

should not be conceptualised and analysed as solely individual problems. The

problems that individuals experience are linked per se with societal structures in a

dialectical relationship. This means that the actions of individuals affect social

structures and vice versa. Within the limitations of an article like this it is not

possible to fully account for Holzkamp’s analysis and the reasoning upon which he

reaches this conclusion. What is perceived and described as the individual’s

problem is to be understood and conceptualised as an element of the shared, societal

maintenance of life. So the primary concern of Critical Psychology is not individual

problem solving or the ability of individuals to solve problems. Instead, the primary

focus is placed on the concepts through which problems are conceived and ‘‘… on

the questions of what possibilities for action are accentuated or excluded in order to

reduce the danger of tackling problems in a way that intensifies them rather than

helping to resolve them’’ (Osterkamp & Schraube, 2013, p. 9). Authors have pointed

to the same danger in career guidance (Thomsen, 2012a; Usher, 2005).

On the basis of Critical Psychology, career guidance in relation to unemployment

or underemployment is to be analysed as a (problematic) element of the shared,

societal maintenance of life. Following this line of reasoning, career guidance is not

a goal in itself but the means to support individuals’ (educational or vocational)

participation in society. The research presented below will illustrate this shift in

analytical perspective and outline the possibilities connected to it.

Int J Educ Vocat Guidance (2014) 14:61–76 65

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Participation and the participant perspective

According to Sultana (2011, 2013 in this issue), the way in which the relationship

between individuals and society is conceptualised in career guidance policy papers

and research, is of great importance. In particular, he emphasises that it matters what

words we use about the individuals that take part in career guidance practises.

Sultana suggests that the use of different words in recent policy papers reflects two

parallel discourses—a neo-liberal discourse with the use of terms such as ‘client’,

‘customer’ and ‘user’; and a citizen’s discourse with the emphasis on citizens’ rights

and career guidance as a social contract (Sultana, 2011). In this article the word

‘participants’ is used about individuals who take part in the guidance processes and

hopefully explain how this adds to the two discourses as identified by Sultana.

Where Sultana’s analyses concern the macro and policy levels of career guidance,

these analyses will focus on the participation of individuals in guidance practises—a

micro level. These analyses also focus on the reciprocal and dialectical relationship

between individuals and social practises—the relation between the micro-level and

the more organisational level of career guidance.

The standpoint of the subject, the first-person perspective and the participant

perspective are all concepts that are emphasised in Critical Psychology. They all

refer to both the theoretical underpinning and the methodological efforts of doing

co-research from the perspective of the participants. The overall research aim in the

study ‘Career guidance in communities’ was to understand how participants came to

make meaning and use of career guidance in their everyday lives. Therefore the

analyses connect the subject, who is socially anchored and a participant in societal

and individual life processes, with an intentionality deriving from that subject’s

participation in career guidance practises. Højholt suggests that this method of

analysis provides new conceptual opportunities for exploring psychological

phenomena in social practises because the analytical efforts take their point of

departure in the way in which social conditions have personal meaning and can

therefore be analysed as reasons for actions (Højholt, 2001).

This article asks what led the workers in the factory to take one action above

another in relation to career guidance. What led the workers to take part or not to

take part in the career guidance interventions and activities offered to them? A

concept that is capable of revealing personal meanings as part of the reasons for

action is the ‘conduct of everyday life’. It is an analytical concept used to capture

the personal reasoning and meaning-making processes that go on in people’s

everyday lives.

Conduct of everyday life

Holzkamp uses the term the personal conduct of everyday life about the task of

designing and conducting a coherent everyday life (Holzkamp, 1998). He calls the

category ‘conduct of everyday life’ a communicative category between subject and

social structure. The conduct of everyday life is to be regarded as the superior entity

under which all areas of life are structured from the perspective of the individual.

Holzkamp builds on the work of a group of sociologists called the Munich Group

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(Holzkamp, 2013). He develops the concept from the Munich Group’s more

sociological concept with the following definition: ‘‘The conduct of everyday life is

an activity ‘every single day’ with a view to organizing, integrating and constructing

daily life in such a way that the various contradictory demands with which the

individuals are confronted can be united and ‘sorted out’’’ (Holzkamp, 1998, p. 24;

author’s translation). Holzkamp adds to this definition what he calls an elementary

cyclicity. Elementary cyclicity means that the individual makes a routine of reasons

for action in order to make life easier. He emphasises that routines do not mean that

life runs automatically, but that each individual still decides to undertake actions, to

go to work, to take the children to school, to use the same old bike to shop for

groceries, to not look for a new job even if s/he is unhappy at work and so forth. The

decision not to take action, for instance the decision to refrain from looking for a

new job, is to be considered an action—every day. In some situations the cyclicity is

disrupted, for example due to redundancy or illness.

This way of thinking makes individuals sovereign with regard to their self-

conduct. The concept of ‘conduct of everyday life’ is a holistic one because it

collates and integrates the actions of individuals and the various contexts for action

into a single whole. Home, school, the workplace, compulsory employment of the

unemployed, career guidance and the sports club are all examples of contexts for

action. In modern liberal democracies there is a fundamental and moral

understanding that each individual is responsible for the development of his/her

own life plan (Borg, 2003).

Two central categories from Critical Psychology have now been presented:

participation and the conduct of everyday life. In the next section the two categories

are used in an analysis of the participation of workers in career guidance in a

factory.

Research method and analysis

The study on which this article is based is titled ‘Career Guidance in Communities’

and was conducted in 2005–2009 (Observations and interviews in 2006–2008). The

aim of the study was to understand how career guidance practises come to make

sense in people’s everyday lives. The study consists of two in-depth case studies in

Denmark: career guidance as practised in a factory setting and in a folk high school

respectively. The two cases were studied intensively through practise research with

participatory observations and semi-structured interviews (Mørck & Nissen, 2001;

Spradley, 1979). Both interviews and observations were based on a ‘decentred

approach’ to the investigation of social phenomena. A decentred approach means

studying how participants make sense of participation in institutional practises

within their everyday lives, and has been carried out in different settings:

psychotherapy (Dreier, 2008; Mackrill, 2007, 2008); guidance and counselling

(Thomsen, 2012a, b); and kindergarten, education and special needs education

(Kousholt, 2009, 2011; Morin, 2008). The research material consists of field notes

and interviews transcribed in full length and altered to protect participant

anonymity.

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Analysis of the observations and interviews was done as a theoretically informed

analysis focusing on bringing out contradictions and differences in the material. The

analysis of the research material involved preliminary coding, theoretically

informed analysis using categories from Critical Psychology on each setting

separately, and a second analysis of the two settings in conjunction. The categories

used in the analysis were: participation and participant perspective, personal

conduct of everyday life, social self-understanding, and ‘analysis of conditions,

meaning and reasons’. The full analysis is published in the book ‘Career Guidance

in Communities’ (Thomsen, 2012a), where the ethical considerations regarding the

study are also accounted for. This article introduces an example from the analysis to

discuss how central categories from the framework of Critical Psychology can be

productive in critical analyses of career guidance practises.

Results

Reasons for change in career guidance practise

This section begins with a presentation of selected research material forming a case

which is not a single situation observation, but a compilation of observations,

participatory observations, group dialogues and semi-structured interviews. The

presentation of the case is followed by an analysis of the changes in delivery of

guidance and the changes in ways of communication between the practitioner and

the participants that the analysis of the case reveals. There is then a discussion of the

potential for developing a socially just career guidance practise, the implications for

policy and practise, and the need for what this article proposes as a form of career

guidance research from the standpoint of the subject.

The career guidance practitioner was waiting in an office assigned to her in a

large production company. She was hired to offer an activity called a ‘career

guidance corner3’ to the workers in the production department, who had all

been made redundant because the company had decided to move its

production abroad. Access to professional career guidance was offered as

part of their severance package. Very few of the workers came to see her. The

career guidance practitioner then decided to do something else and started to

‘hang out’ in the production hall, where she talked to the men working there

about their work in general. Later she was invited to join the men for lunch

and to advertise a variety of information about courses, training and jobs on a

wall in the lunchroom. During breaks in the production the career guidance

practitioner would have conversations with one or more workers in the

lunchroom. They would start by talking about some information on the wall

with each other, and sooner or later she would join in. Sometimes these

conversations would lead to other activities, for instance a course on how to

write applications, how to write a CV and how to upload your CV to a job net.

3 See Thomsen (2012a) or Plant (2008) for further descriptions of the career guidance corner.

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Or individual interviews with the focus on finding relevant courses.

Sometimes the conversations seemed to lead nowhere.

Non-participation as an agent of change

One line of analysis was concerned with investigating the dialectic between

individuals and career guidance as a social practise. This analysis focused on the

actions performed by the workers in relation to the career guidance through the

concept of participation. It shows that the workers did not seek to influence career

guidance through dialogue or discussion about the guidance practise or by revealing

to the career guidance practitioner what their needs for guidance were. Their

influence happened through the way they took part. They did not show up. They did

not make use of the guidance offered to them. This way of participating impacted

the mode of delivery because it forced the practitioner to take (other) action(s). And

she had several options. She did not leave the workplace saying that the workers

lacked motivation for taking part in career guidance. She did not arrange for

participation in career guidance dialogues to be obligatory. Instead, she went into

the production hall, trying to talk to the workers in another place and in another

way, an action that made it possible for her to talk with them as a group instead of as

single individuals.

The physical movement of the career guidance practise from an office in one

building to the workers’ lunchroom in the production building is interesting in more

than one way. It can be conceptualised as an action of outreach. When the career

guidance practitioner was in the office away from the production department, the

workers had to leave the assembly line to go and see her. Nobody leaves an

assembly line unnoticed! Locating the career guidance in a room some distance

from the production facilities meant that any workers participating in it would be

seen by their colleagues. When the workers were asked about their need for career

guidance in the interviews, most of them said that they had no such need. The career

guidance practitioner involved in this case explained that the change in the location

and manner of the guidance provided meant that the situation was no longer

threatening for the workers because it was no longer so obvious that they were

attending career guidance. In the lunchroom they could hide in the crowd. It can be

said that the new mode of delivery and the new place meant a change from more

formal dialogue to informal communication. And it made it possible to participate

from a larger number of positions. For the importance of considering place as a

promising analytical concept in career guidance research see Thomsen (2013).

New participant positions

If we take a look at the career guidance practised in the lunchroom from the

perspective of the workers, two new positions now seem to be available: the

position of listening and the position of not hearing. In particular, the position of

listening seemed to be of importance since the workers had virtually no previous

experience of career guidance. They had little knowledge of what they could gain

from participating in career guidance. Being able to listen to questions asked by

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colleagues supported them in their own reflections and in forming questions of their

own. Even though almost all of them said to me in the interviews that they had no

need for career guidance, they all agreed that it had been great that Ulla (the name of

the career guidance practitioner) had come to the factory. They found that it had

been very helpful to talk to her on various occasions and they found that the support

she could offer important in their attempts to get a new job or to pursue education or

training opportunities. They also said that they valued the fact that she came to the

factory even if she didn’t have an appointment with any of them.

By allowing the guidance practise to develop into a new mode of delivery, the

practitioner managed to meet the need/interest of the workers as expressed through

their actions. This in turn fuelled new ways of practising career guidance as a more

integrated part of everyday life in the factory than it had been before—a way that

made better sense to the workers who were supposed to benefit from it.

The interview material touching upon the redundancies revealed that the workers

felt it was important to emphasise that they had not been laid off because they had

not done their work well or lacked qualifications or competences. They explained

that they had been dismissed due to the economic crises that had forced the factory

to cut back on costs. To me they suggested that it should be the responsibility of the

company to help them find new jobs, and that production companies which move

their production elsewhere are creating a problem for society as a whole because of

fewer low-skilled jobs. The fact that the company brought in a career guidance

practitioner to assist them can be seen as the company taking on a social

responsibility; but the way the career guidance was intended to take place meant

that the workers at first interpreted the offer of career guidance differently. They

resisted taking part in individual career guidance interviews. Their resistance

resulted in a change of practise—and this change from an individual to a more

collective approach can be interpreted as more in line with the workers’

understanding of the problem as societal, embedded in societal structures and

macro-economic dispositions.

The change in mode of delivery allowed for a transformation from an individual

approach to a more collective approach which supported the workers’ collective

identity and their narrative about collective dismissal, as well as allowing the

workers to support each other’s efforts to find a new job.

Conclusions

The analytical categories of ‘participation’ and ‘conduct of everyday life’ were used

to analyse (1) the way in which the workers took part in career guidance, (2) the way

in which this influenced the guidance practise, and (3) what these changes meant in

terms of turning career guidance into an integrated and meaningful practise in the

everyday life in the factory.

In sum the analysis of the case suggests that the actions of the workers in relation

to the career guidance offered to them and the way they took part in career guidance

resulted in a number of changes: (1) A physical movement from an office in one

building to the workers’ lunchroom; (2) a change from formal to informal

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communication and from a potentially ‘threatening’ situation to a ‘safe’ situation;

and (3) a transformation from an individual approach to a collective approach.

Implications for career guidance practise, theory, training, policy and research

This article has introduced Critical Psychology as a basis for the analysis of

individuals’ participation in career guidance. The analysis suggests that participants,

through their participation, can change the delivery of guidance from individual

interventions to more collective forms and modes of delivery. Sultana (2011) has

pointed out that the words we use about people in career guidance are significant.

Sultana’s analysis aims at a policy, discourse and macro level of analysis; while this

analysis aims at a practise, subject and micro level of analysis, arguing on the basis

of Critical Psychology that the term ‘participants’ should be further discussed as a

term used to refer to the individuals involved in guidance practise. The analysis of

the participants’ concrete participation and of their conduct of everyday life makes

it possible to discuss the connections between ways of thinking about career

guidance and the resulting actions taken in policy development, practise develop-

ment and the search for productive analytical categories and research frameworks.

Practise, theory and training

Following the line of reasoning that is presented here, the implications for career

practises are that career guidance professionals can develop an awareness that

allows for recognition of the changes initiated by individual participants through

their participation in career guidance activities. An awareness that will support

guidance practitioners to constantly develop their practise and invent new career

guidance activities based on the actions they observe and experience from the

participants in career guidance practises. European Lifelong Guidance Policy

Network (ELGPN) has put forward a need to involve users in the quality work of

career guidance (ELGPN, 2010, 2012). The study ‘Voice of Users’ commissioned

by Nordic network for Adult Learning (NVL) concludes that in the Nordic countries

user involvement in shaping the practise and policy of adult career guidance is

scarce (Vilhjalmsdottir, Dofradottir, & Kjartansdottir, 2011). One way of enhancing

user involvement could be by paying attention to what the users already suggest

through their way of participation in career guidance practises.

This attention can also be supported through methodological development.

A reflection model for career guidance in communities has been developed by

Thomsen, Skovhus, and Buhl (2013). This model contains seven elements. Two of

these elements are ‘to investigate potentials for guidance’ and ‘to choose and decide

on guidance activities’. The first element aims at supporting the guidance

practitioner in observing and listening to the participants in a community of which

the guidance practise is part. Practitioners listen to the questions they ask and the

problems they experience, and practitioners are encouraged to relate this to their

own professional knowledge about the potential effects and benefits of different

career guidance methods and activities. Furthermore, career guidance practitioners

are encouraged to talk about their ideas for career guidance activities with the

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participants in order to discuss their relevance and examine the participants’

standpoint before deciding which activities to offer. Practitioners will do this as a

part of the community by being present where people already live their lives. This

will, in turn, affect the visibility of the guidance practise. These discussions can be

done on an informal basis, for instance during a lunch break, so the participants feel

that it is the result of a genuine interest in what they have to say rather than being an

additional facet of career guidance practise. Discussions should include consider-

ations about organising principles (individual/collective/group) and the kind of

activities involved (e.g., study visits, guidance wall, group guidance, course

activities and methods; Thomsen et al. 2013). The aim of involving the participants

in these discussions is to create a practise that they find relevant and meaningful,

and to support the feeling of ownership of career guidance practises.

It is very likely that not all career guidance practitioners will feel comfortable

about practising career guidance in communities. For instance, Westergaard found

that career guidance practitioners were reluctant to instigate group guidance

activities because this was not a part of their initial training (Westergaard, 2009).

The recently published NICE Handbook for Academic Training for Career

Guidance and Counselling Professionals describes the need to train guidance

practitioners in six core competences, one of them being Social Systems

Intervention and Development (Schiersmann, Ertelt, Katsarov, Mulvey, Reid, &

Weber, 2012). The skills that are related to this competence are: ‘‘(1) Conducting

fieldwork, observations and interviews to understand interests, perspectives and

needs of different target groups; (2) Consulting skills/techniques with a focus on

questions of career guidance and counselling (e.g. placement, recruitment); (3)

Facilitate effective referrals by means of initiating contacts between referral sources

and individuals; (4) Developing skills in promoting social justice, advocacy, and

feedback regarding CGC services in particular institutional contexts’’ (p. 75).

In Denmark a new course on Career Guidance in Communities and Groups was

approved in 2012 for the diploma course in Career Guidance.

Policy

Career guidance as an action in relation to people suffering from redundancy and

unemployment or from drop out/push out can be viewed as a practise that is put in

place with a view to supporting individuals in (re)gaining control of their lives (in

other words, a critical psychological perspective). But career guidance is at the same

time at risk of being a social control mechanism (Plant & Thomsen, 2012). Borg

points to the fact that with the state’s right to take initiatives to demonstrate

responsibility for its citizens follows the risk of guardianship or paternalism (Borg,

2003, p. 49). Even if they arise from the best of intentions, initiatives taken with

regard to certain groups in society are often based upon what is considered to be the

best for the individuals concerned or assumptions about their general needs.

With reference to the Danish philosopher Uffe Juul Jensen, Borg explains that

ethical principles considering responsibility for the weakest members of society

either can be regarded as a responsibility where the state takes over and takes

responsibility followed by control and assessment activities or the state assumes

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responsibility for involving individuals or groups in the processes in which they are

concerned, processes that aim at discovering or developing new options for action

where old ways of conducting life have been blocked or made very difficult (Borg,

2003). This study supports the idea of involving the people who are to benefit from

career guidance practises in the development of new ways of practising.

As a result, the policy applied in this field needs to develop the same kind of

awareness and sensitivity towards the professionals and their efforts in developing a

career practise that participants will experience as meaningful. ELGPN recently

suggested that the countries that have national Forums for Guidance should develop

regional counterparts that could support cooperation between local innovative

projects and central policymakers (ELGPN, 2012).

Research

In conclusion, Critical Psychology as basis for doing explorative, qualitative

research from the standpoint of the subjects involved and the subjects for whom

career guidance is supposed to make a difference in their daily lives has proven

fruitful and promising. But more studies need to be undertaken. The coherent

conceptualisation of the relationship of individual and society, between participant

and social practise as a dialectic allows for analysis of changes for individuals as

well as for practise. A decentred perspective on career guidance makes it possible to

describe and discuss the way in which career guidance is either regarded as relevant

or rejected, changed and turned into something more significant.

When career guidance is studied from a participant perspective, its partiality

becomes clear. This raises the question of how it can become a relevant context for

participation in the lives of individuals, since the experience of relevance has an

influence on whether and how participants participate in career guidance. The

analysis presented here indicates that career guidance practitioners, researchers and

politicians cannot assume that career guidance will be perceived as relevant and

useful by everyone; but the results also indicate that career guidance may be

relevant if it provides a context for action in which participants can join forces with

career guidance practitioners to analyse and create opportunities to find their way in

a situation calling for particular thoughts and actions in relation to their future

educational or vocational participation in society.

Limitations

This study involves a limited number of participants and has no intentions of

producing knowledge that can be generalised to large cohorts. It is explorative and

theory-driven, and claims communicative validity (Kvale, 1995) as well as

psychopolitical validity (Prilleltensky, 2003) through its conceptual clarity and

through the discussions and changes it might inspire. As with most in-depth

qualitative studies, it would be difficult to repeat the study, and the potential bias of

qualitative inquiries lies in the role of the researcher and his/her interpretation. Given

the theme of the issue of ‘social justice’, it is worth considering alternative

interpretations of the case. Roberts (2005) suggests that career guidance is class-

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blind. The resistance from the workers in the factory might be interpreted as a struggle

for better future possibilities that is enacted by workers’ refusal to take part in

individual career guidance. As an alternative interpretation, the actions of the career

practitioner could be understood as ‘‘tactical class blindness’’ (p. 138). By this—

changing the modes of delivery—it could be argued that she is actually reinforcing

the role of guidance as a practise that then invariably ensures the kind of flexible and

effective workforce that is needed to support the competitiveness of nation states in

the global economy. This potential and also real influence is but one example of how

‘tactical class blindness’, and subtle socio-political formative nuances can be enacted

by practitioners. As such, this opens up for further and re-interpretation of results that

stem from this particular study and others from the field of career guidance.

Acknowledgments The author wishes to thank two anonymous reviewers for their feedback and

productive comments.

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