Why Careers matter? Helping young people to think about the future

1. Why Careers matter?Helping young people to think about the future Tristram Hooley Workshop at Hong Kong Baptist University 14th February 2019

2. Overview

3. Overview

4. How you defined career

5. What is career? Career is… the individual’s journey through life, learning and work.

6. Expanded notion of work (ENOW) – Wong (2015)

7. How you defined career guidance

8. Defining career guidance “Career guidance supports individuals and groups to discover more about work, leisure and learning and to consider their place in the world and plan for their futures… Career guidance can take a wide range of forms and draws on diverse theoretical traditions. But at its heart it is a purposeful learning opportunity which supports individuals and groups to consider and reconsider work, leisure and learning in the light of new information and experiences and to take both individual and collective action as a result of this.”

9. Career guidance can be embedded in wider services

10. Overview

11. What issues do the young people that you work with face?

12. Maslow’s hierarchy of neeeds Where do the issues that your young people face fit onto this hierarchy? Where does ‘career’ fit into this?

13. Rethinking Maslow Context Progression and change Career is how we manage and negotiate the interaction between our needs over time

14. Imagine if things were the same forever • Career is how we think beyond our immediate circumstances. • It is about taking control of our lives and our futures.

15. Mirko’s story

16. Discussion: Mirko’ Context Progression and change How can we understand Mirko’s story in this way? What is he looking for?

17. Overview

18. Inspiration? “If you believe in yourself you can make yourself what every you want to be.” Lea Michelle

19. Career and context

20. Influences on our career

21. Analysing the context

22. The importance of labour market information What information exists? How are you using it? How can you make it available to young people

23. Discussion • What information is available on the labour market in Hong Kong? • How do you use this information in your services? • Do you encourage young people to engage with it directly?

24. Key principles for the use of labour market information (Alexander, 2019) • Information should be contextualised and relevant. • Resources should be clearly structured and segmented according to user need • Resources should have a pedagogical design • Resources should be designed for use in wider career decision making contexts of individuals

25. How we experience context negativelyYoung’s Faces of Oppression

26. Capitals – how we manage (and are managed by) context Bourdieu’s capitals Other capitals Mobility capital Erotic capital Career capital Etc. • Financial capital • Social capital • Cultural capital

27. Discussion

28. Overview

29. Social justice approach to Career Guidance • Context and power are important in framing our careers. • There are things that we can do to challenge inequality and oppression. • The concept of ‘career’ can support individual and collective emancipation.

30. Five signposts towards emancipatory career guidance • developing critical consciousness • the naming of oppression • problematising norms, assumptions and power relations • building solidarity and collective action • working at a range of levels and scales from the individual to the global. Hooley, Sultana & Thomsen, 2019

31. An Example from Brazil Marcelo Afonso Ribeiro and Guilherme de Oliveira Silva Fonçatti - The gap between theory and context as a generator of social injustice: Seeking to confront social inequality in Brazil through career guidance • Use and develop theories that are embedded in the local context. • Let people tell their stories, help them to imagine their futures (co-construction) • Help them to see how they fit into the context • Challenge them to think about their lives as ‘careers’ even the bits that they see as failures (see also ENOW). This helps them to see themselves as ‘the subject of rights’. • Help them to construct a trajectory away from being a ‘subordinate person’.

32. Think of a young person you work with How can you help them to • Develop a better understanding of their context and their position within it? • Name the oppression that they face and think about how to challenge it? • Challenge what they assume to be ‘normal’ and ‘natural’ in their life? • Connect with other people for mutual support? • Make progress in the short-term, but also gain more influence over their context?

33. References • Alexander, R. (2019). Labour market information and careers education and guidance: A literature review. Reading: Education Development Trust. • Bourdieu, P. (1986) The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.) Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp.241-258). New York: Greenwood. • Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant, L. J. D. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. • Hooley, T., Sultana, R.G. and Thomsen, R. (2018). Career guidance for social justice: Contesting neoliberalism. London: Routledge. • Maslow, A.H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 370-396. • Rutledge, P.B. (2011). Social networks: What Maslow misses. Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/positively-media/201111/social-networks-what-maslow-misses-0. • Wong, V. (2015). Youth transition to work in an age of uncertainty and insecurity: Towards an expanded notion of work for insight and innovation. Journal of Applied Youth Studies, 1(1), 21- 41.

34. Conclusions • Career is a part of life. It is interwoven into every other aspect of what we do. • Career can’t wait. It has to be addressed alongside other more acute needs. • Career offers people motivation and solutions to their problems. • We need to acknowledge the context within which people build their careers and help them to understand and critique this context. • A social justice approach is a practical way to address these challenges in an unfair world.

35. About me Tristram Hooley Professor of Career Education, University of Derby/ Professor II, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences/ Chief Research Officer, Institute of Student Employers Email: t.hooley@derby.ac.uk Twitter: @pigironjoe Blog: https://adventuresincareerdevelopment.wordpress.com/