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/
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.
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.
