This chapter explores qualitative career assessment as an identity learning process where meaning-oriented learning is essential and distinguished from conditioned or semantic types of learning. In order to construct a career identity in the form of a future-oriented narrative, it is essential that learners are helped through cognitive learning stages with the help of a dialogue about concrete experiences which aims to pay attention to emotions and broadens and deepens what is expressed.
DOCUMENT
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to focus on the effects of career development and guidance among students (age 17-23) enrolled in higher education in The Netherlands. First the paper explores whether the development of career competencies contribute to career identity, learning motivation, certainty of career choice and drop out, and also whether the learning environment affects these variables. In the study, four career competencies are identified: career reflection (reflective behavior), work exploration (exploring behavior), career action (pro-active behavior) and networking (interactive behavior). Aspects of the learning environment that are taken into account are practice- and inquiry-based curriculum and career guidance conversations. Design/methodology/approach: A questionnaire-based study was carried out among 4,820 students and 371 (school) career counsellors in 11 universities. Findings: The results show that career competencies are related to learning motivation, career identity, certainty of career choice and drop out threat. The learning environment also contributes to these outcome variables. Students who participate in a practice-based and inquiry-based curriculum, and who have helping conversations about their study with their teachers, feel more motivated for learning, are more certain of their career choice and are less likely to quit their study. Research limitations/implications: A limitation of this study is that, due to the cross-sectional design with no control group, no strong evidence for effectiveness can be presented. Moreover, the lack of well validated instruments limits the value of the results. The explained variance of the outcome variables, however, does indicate that there are relationships between career competencies and career learning environment on one hand, and career identity, learning motivation and certainty of choices on the other. Practical implications: Constructing and attributing meaning when engaging in these dialogues is of central importance; the development of personality traits and qualities only takes place when those learning find the content meaningful (and that is something quite different than content being considered “necessary”). In order to achieve such a learning environment within the dominant educational culture, transformative leadership is essential. Such leadership, however, is rare in Dutch universities of applied sciences until now. Social implications: Universities are increasingly acknowledging that they have a strong responsibility to guide students not only in their academic growth, but also in their career development. Universities – and especially universities of applied sciences – cannot leave this task to the public or private sector for two key reasons. First, universities are funded by the government and are therefore expected to prepare their students adequately for life in our individualized society as well as for the labor market. In the second place because organizations in the private and public sector often lack the knowledge and the motivation to guide young people on their career paths. Originality/value: A limitation found in the research, as well as in actual career interventions in schools, is that they focus on change in students’ knowledge, attitudes and decision-making skills, while students’ behaviors are not examined. Hughes and Karp (2004) maintain that research should focus on exploring the relationships between guidance interventions and positive students’ behavioral outcomes. Therefore, the paper concentrates – in search of the influence of school-based career interventions – not on decision-making skills, attitudes or knowledge but on actual career behavior, i.e. career competencies of students.
DOCUMENT
In response to a rapidly changing, increasingly insecure and complex labor market, career counselors and researchers are developing methods that can meet the needs of individuals who would navigate this new terrain. In the last two or three decades, narrative career counseling practices (Cochran, 1997; McMahon & Watson, 2012; Reid & West, 2011; Savickas, 2012) have been developed to promote career adaptability (Savickas, 2011) and career resilience (Lyons, Schweitzer & Ng, 2015). Narrative counseling (i.e. career construction) is founded on the idea that in order to survive and thrive on the labor market of the 21st century, individuals must reflexively construct their identities in a process of meaning making, where identity is co-constructed in the form of a narrative: a story about who one is that provides both meaning and direction (Wijers & Meijers, 1996). LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reinekke-lengelle-phd-767a4322/
MULTIFILE
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.
DOCUMENT
In the first half of the 20th century, the individual life course was largely determined by ‘standard biographies’ (Du Bois-Reymond, 1998; Meijers & Wesselingh, 1999) whereby identity – the story individuals tell themselves and share with others about the meaning of their lives (Meijers & Lengelle, 2012) – was constructed on the basis of socially prescribed ‘master narratives’ (Davies & Harré, 1990) or ‘grand narratives’ (Lyotard, 1984). This pattern changed in the second half of the 20th century with the advent of secularization, the lifting of socio-political barriers, growing prosperity and mobility and the resulting increase in possible choices. The ‘prescriptive power’ of these narratives became increasingly contested, especially by young people, resulting in a growing individualization of society (Bauman, 2001; Giddens, 1991). For most people, this movement towards individualization was not problematic as long as the ever-growing prosperity made it possible to have a second or third chance to make new choices. However, society soon became a risk society (Beck, 1992). LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reinekke-lengelle-phd-767a4322/
MULTIFILE
This article presents the results of a survey on the internationalization of Bachelor’s education in social work, which was carried out at 33 schools of social work across Europe. Many universities are seeking to “internationalize” their social work curriculum. However, although many social work educators are convinced of the importance of cross-border exchange, others are sceptical about the added value of internationalization for a professional career in social work. The aim of this study is to contribute to the discussion about the significance of internationalizing the curriculum of Bachelor’s programmes in social work. Since internationalization in itself is an ideological endeavour, educators must reflect on and formulate their own ideological motives and aspirations. To this end, representatives of schools of social work completed a questionnaire concerning the aim of internationalization, the structure of the curriculum, student and staff mobility, international policies and challenges. This study demonstrates that all universities have added an international dimension to their curricula. Many educators believe that internationalizing the social work curriculum contributes to qualitatively better future professionals “at home”. However, most of the respondents are dissatisfied with what has actually been achieved in terms of their universities’ international ambitions. This is due to a lack of language skills and facilities. Above all, we think, that this dissatisfaction is related to the underlying debate on universalism and indigenization in social work practice and education.
DOCUMENT
The Fontys University of professional Education, department of Mechanical Engineering, has started development of a new curriculum during the year 2000-2001, Human Mechanical Engineering (HME). Next to immersion of our students in actual technology practices, we aim to include for our students new topics in the field of Mechanical Engineering. We aim to include methods and an approach towards a career as an intermediary between the market and the company. We also include a well developed valuesystem, compatible with the working of Society, a sense of responsibility and a capacity for independent thought. Skills such as entrepeneurship and following market developments are combined with management of product-creation processes and some depth in selected mechanical engineering topics. The curriculum will be designed with 14 so-called competences as educational targets (See also Dick van Schenk Brill & Peter Boots 2001). Knowledge as well as skills and attitudes are combined in a competence in such a way that it meets a standard of behaviour for an excellent engineer. Also the individual career expectations will be used to arrive at optimal choices for papers, assignments and traineeships for every given student. At this moment recruitment is at full speed. During the season 2001-2002 further developments will be undertaken from a general baseline within the department of Mechanical Engineering. Furthermore work will be done on implementing interdisciplinary (Hans van Zonneveld & Hay Geraedts 1997) as well as international collaboration and communication (Peter van Kollenburg & Hay Geraedts 2001) and further developments into topics like sustainability and ethics.
DOCUMENT
This explanatory sequential mixed methods study explores the perceptions of academic and administrative managers responsible for teacher training at a public university in Colombia, as well as their views on improving such training after learning about the performance of teachers student teachers in the 2019 Saber Pro test, the differences in their test scores, and the relationships and statistical correlations between these outcomes and the students’ personal, family, socioeconomic and academic characteristics. Our findings show significant differences in the student teachers’ mean scores and performance when data are grouped according to personal, socioeconomic and academic conditions; a significant relationship between performance and student teacher characteristics; and correlations between critical reading scores and the other competencies assessed. Our data also highlight the lack of knowledge among academic and administrative managers about students’ life circumstances and the diversity of factors that may impact their performance; the importance of correlational data; the difference between expected and true outcomes; the inequity under which students seem to pursue their education; the limitations in access to resources; the training required for teachers to be able to analyze quantitative data and use specific software; the impact of teachers’ critical reading skills on student outcomes; the importance of data-driven decision-making; and the need for teachers to engage in quantitative research practices.
DOCUMENT
Careers work is a very political business. Since the early 1990s, successive governments in England and the Netherlands have persistently challenged those working in the careers sector to demonstrate the educational, social and economic value and impact of their work. In this context, the marketisation of career guidance policies and practices has expanded, with a growing assumption that market-based goods and services ensure greater responsiveness to consumer choice and offer better and/or more innovative services for lower prices. In this article, we do not intend to give a comparison of trends in England and the Netherlands. We only examine the impact of market principles applied to career guidance provision in both countries. Findings indicate such provision for young people is on a steady decline. Lessons learned from these two nations indicate that a market for quality career services does not exist in schools and colleges. As a result, marketisation and privatisation of career services have led to an impoverished and fragmented supply of services. Greater attention by governments in career guidance policies for young people (and adults) is necessary to reduce the widening gap between ‘the haves and have nots’ in society. Failure to reduce labour market mismatch through new forms of careers dialogue is not only damaging and costly for individuals, families and employers, but for the taxpayer too.
DOCUMENT
