The intention of this chapter is to show how autoethnographic research might promote reflexivity among career professionals. We aim to answer the question: can writing one’s own life and career story assist career practitioners and researchers in identifying patterns, idiosyncrasies, vulnerabilities that will make them more aware of the elements that are fundamental to career construction and that have been mentioned in a variety of disparate places in the existing career literature? What interested us as career researchers and co-creators of the narrative approach Career Writing in considering the innovative intention of this book, was how writing our own career story could deepen our professional reflexivity and might also help others to do so. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22799-9_30 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reinekke-lengelle-phd-767a4322/
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Career Writing is a narrative approach to qualitative career assessment whereby client (or student) groups use creative, reflective, and expressive forms of writing to foster an internal dialogue about career. It is intended to help individuals construct a career identity by uncovering life themes, assessing drives and wishes, and rewriting stories (i.e., narrative truths) that no longer serve. The starting point for this learning process is usually a crisis, which could be a situation, event, attitude or choice dilemma surrounding work. Research shows that career writing holds promise for university students in the process of career formation and orientation and can help adults facing job loss.
Career opportunities play an important role in keeping teachers passionate and motivated in their profession. As such opportunities contribute to growth, challenge, variation and recognition, they can both attract high quality candidates to the profession and keep talented teacher in the profession for a longer time. However, the traditional view on the teacher profession can be considered as static with little career opportunities. This raises the questions: how teacher careers can be understood, and what the implications for such a more dynamic understanding are for education systems, school heads, teachers and for teacher education.Taking into account this questions, six international reports on teacher careers that aim to support national systems to strengthen career opportunities for teachers are explored in this chapter. These reports from the European Commission’s Working Groups on Schools, the Commissions data network Eurydice, OECD and UNESCO, all emphasize the importance of strengthening career opportunities for teachers, but vary in their focus, as most report focus on formal career structures that are embedded in national legislation, while the EC’s Working Group Schools report from 2020 takes a somewhat wider perspective, taking the perspective of teacher more as a starting point in identifying career options. From the reports the implications for teachers, school heads and teacher education can be derived, including the need for a wider and more dynamic view on the profession, leading to a wider professional identity, the need for the development of career competences for teachers and the need for initial teacher education institutes to actively support teachers not only during their initial development, but throughout the different stages of their career.
Promoting entrepreneurship is an enabler of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and it is one objective EU regions have pursued since the EC included it into 2020 Strategy. Entrepreneurship development has economic and social benefits, since it is not only a driving force for job creation, competitiveness and growth; it also contributes to personal fulfillment and to achieve social objectives. That is why the EU encourages entrepreneurial initiatives and to unlock the growth potential of businesses and citizens. However, only a 37% of Europeans (Eurobarometer 2012) would like to be self-employed. The Entrepreneurship Action Plan adopted by the EC in 2013 to reignite Europe’s entrepreneurial spirit includes initiatives for educating young people on entrepreneurship. To ensure that EU economy remains globally competitive, young generations of Europeans need to be inspired to develop their entrepreneurial mindset. EU 2020 Action Plan argues that young people benefitting of a specialised entrepreneurial education are more likely to start-up a business and to better tackle challenges in their professional career and life in general. Hence, there is good reason to ensure better quality of entrepreneurial education. Most approaches in recent years have focused on improving the skills or competences youngsters should obtain only within the education system. However, an integrated approach is needed, where the school, their friends, family and the social environment, shall play each one a relevant role, contributing to generate a more adequate atmosphere to boost their entrepreneurial mindsets, intrapreneurial attitudes and innovation capacities. This project will identify and exchange – through a quadruple helix approach- good practices for creating friendlier entrepreneurial ecosystems and actions to boost entrepreneurship in young people mindsets. The good practices and lessons learnt will be transferred into Action Plans to be included in regional policies.
In line with the ‘Natuur- en milieubeleidsplan Caribisch Nederland 2020-2030 (NMBP)’ the consortium intends with this research proposal to contribute to a prosperous society with a resilient population and healthy natural environment. The Caribbean Netherlands are dealing with a situation where imported vegetables and fruits are mostly imported and hardly affordable. This leads to consuming unhealthy food and high obesities rates as a consequence. A lack of good agricultural practices with regard to water-smart and nature inclusive agriculture, as well as limited coping capacities to deal with hazards and climate change, results in very limited local production and interest. Initiatives that focused only on agrotechnological solutions for food resilient futures turned out to be ineffective due to a lack of local ownership, which jeopardizes sustainability. Moreover, the ‘green’ and ‘blue’ domains are not seen as attractive career perspectives among youth, hampering a bright future for those domains. The aim of this research is to contribute to water-smart and nature inclusive food resilience embedded in a local participatory perspective in the Caribbean Netherlands. To address the above challenges, a living lab approach is adopted, where youth will be trained as (co)-facilitators (WP1) who will contribute to a participatory envisioning process and an articulation of food resilient futures (WP2). Finally, based on the envisioning process local stakeholders will select and implement experiments for food resilient futures followed by dissemination of results among key stakeholders as well as children and youth at the BES islands (WP3). This project strategy will lead to a network of a living lab where professionals and youth work together on food resilient futures. Training manuals and the results of experiments with regard to water and food system alternatives will be used actively to encourage youth to be involved in sustainable agriculture and consumption.
