https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/35816 2026-04-23T06:09:17Z 2026-04-23T06:09:17Z Bengtsson, Anki https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/36218 2018-11-16T02:23:56Z 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Rethinking social justice, equality and emancipation : an invitation to attentive career guidance Authors: Bengtsson, Anki Abstract: One might regard social justice as an ideal, but also as a part of biopolitics, that is, the management of populations in terms of the security and well-being of citizens (Foucault, 2008). In the Western transition towards modernity, the issue of social justice emerged as a response to the radical transformation of social structures in industrial societies. At the core of social justice during that period were efforts to improve the distribution of resources and individuals’ inclusion into society in order to allow them to practice their rights and duties as citizens (Reisch, 2014). From the view of education and career guidance, social justice is traditionally associated with a common good and a just society in addition to, among other things, the redistribution of welfare, inclusion, the opportunities of citizenship and diversity (Strand & Roos, 2012; Sultana, 2014a). In the early 1900s, vocational guidance was an attempt to contribute to what was considered to be central to social justice at the time—preventing exclusion from entering employment and supporting oneself in society. Later, in the welfare state regime, the role of the guidance practitioner was designed to function as the expertise of the progression of individuals’ development with regard to work and education (Sultana, 2014a; Plant & Kjærgård, 2016). In contrast to the redistribution of resources and the order of progression in the welfare state regime, neoliberal rationality rests upon the allocation of resources and the order of competition. Neoliberal governance works by access, participation, the delegation of responsibility and the deployment of expertise to support equal opportunities (Dean, 2010). The neoliberal rationality of equal opportunities to participate in democratic processes and social networks in society underpins the reasoning of social justice. In this logic, social justice has come to be more or less equivalent to social inclusion for the support of individuals’ opportunity to participate in society and take the lead in their own lives. Thus, the moral imperative is associated with performing active citizenship, and this presumes inclusion into society. This idea informs career guidance activities that aim at autonomy and career self-management (Bengtsson, 2016). Within both the progression discourse and the equal opportunity discourse the educated subject and the informed subject emerge as available positions of identification for a responsible citizen. However, as shown, these subjects are constructed from different kinds of knowledge, mechanisms and governing practices operating in a social-historical context. Related to equal opportunity, the states of exclusion are considered a temporal lack of inclusion in neoliberal governmental and social order. Consequently, inclusion is the target and the goal in expert programmes on counselling and learning. In accord with this logic, the ‘experts of inclusion’ (Rose, 1999) such as the teacher and the guidance practitioner, are expected to ‘treat every form of exclusion as a temporal condition of individuals in need of special support’ (Simons & Masschelein, 2010a, p. 598). This reasoning of social inclusion, according to Irving (2010), shapes career possibilities to be an apolitical issue and merely a matter of adaptation to a competitive labour market and changing requests for employment. The role of career guidance is then to support certain groups who have not yet obtained the necessary skills to adapt and be included in the game of competition, bridge the gap between the proclaimed equal opportunity and reduce inequality. This rationale is illustrated in the section concerning career guidance policy for social inclusion. This chapter aims to problematise the logic and practices that underlie assumptions about social justice within current career guidance. In the first section, I address contemporary public career guidance policy (primarily EU policy) and the attributes ascribed to social justice and the governing rationality that underpin them. Taking risk governance as an example, I examine current thinking regarding risk and the ways individuals and groups are subjected to position themselves in this social order. Further, I examine the role of career guidance in the governing of risk. In the second section, I discuss some stated suggestions for emancipatory career guidance in contemporary career research to challenge neoliberal politics concerning social justice and the accompanying agenda. In relation to this, I also introduce Rancière’s thought-provoking ideas about intellectual equality, which is the basis for educational emancipation and its implications for career guidance. Lastly, and related to the assumption of equality, I offer a theoretical suggestion of what I call an attentive career guidance as an attempt think about equality and emancipation differently and reflect upon how it matters for career guidance. Description: Includes an overview of all contributors

2018-01-01T00:00:00Z Afonso Ribeiro, Marcelo Oliveira Silva Foncatti, Guilherme de https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/36214 2018-11-16T02:23:55Z 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: The gap between theory and context as a generator of social injustice : seeking to confront social inequality in Brazil through career guidance Authors: Afonso Ribeiro, Marcelo; Oliveira Silva Foncatti, Guilherme de Abstract: This chapter aims to discuss the gap between theory and context in the career guidance field in the global South. To do this it will analyse the concepts and theories governing the field in the global South using the case study of Brazil. This chapter explores how importing decontextualised theories, concepts and practices from other countries into career guidance in Brazil has maintaining the status quo and supported neoliberal agendas and diminished the field’s capacity to tackle social injustice. Career guidance in Brazil is marked by an incongruity between theories and practices. In general, career guidance in the country has a more individualistic focus, despite a predominance of group work, and the practitioners’ focus is on the individual, and not on the collective or on social relations. It is aimed largely at the middle and upper classes in a country which is marked by social inequality and increasingly precarious careers (Ribeiro, Uvaldo, & Silva, 2015). However, there are practical examples of career guidance interventions in Brazil that go beyond importing theories. These are mainly based on historical and dialectical materialism (Bock & Bock, 2005), critical psychoanalysis (Bohoslavsky, 1983; Rascován, 2005) and social constructionism (Ribeiro, 2016). These approaches are not in line with neoliberal interests. We have proposed some principles and guidelines for a theoreticaltechnical framework for career guidance. This framework considers the diversity of experiences and contexts in Brazil. It is our aim to contribute to confronting inequality and social injustice, as well as neoliberal agendas, instead of perpetuating them. This chapter is an improvement to the proposals discussed by Fonçatti (2016), Ribeiro (2016), and Silva, Paiva, and Ribeiro (2016). This proposal is not only relevant to Brazil; it has rather been created to build a theoretical-technical framework which can allow for the inclusion of context in the theories and practices of career guidance, that is, ‘building theory in context’. Therefore, we believe that it has the potential to be used in varied contexts around the world.

2018-01-01T00:00:00Z Bilon, Anna https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/36213 2018-11-16T02:23:53Z 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Looking for social justice through agency — applying Giddens’s structuration theory to career guidance research and analysis Authors: Bilon, Anna Abstract: In this chapter, I present the theory of structuration (ST) by Giddens as a useful tool and methodology that allows researchers to examine career guidance (CG) in depth, while considering macro, meso and micro levels of analyses. ST can serve as a source of inspiration for sociological research on career guidance. I discuss how ST can contribute to a more profound understanding of the role of CG in the struggle for social justice. The latter is in this chapter largely understood in terms of left-oriented, Marxist conceptions of the term, with special attention being paid to the distributive aspects of social life (Rosenthal & Yudin, 1967). ST, on its part, is used here as a ‘system of sensitising concepts’ (Turner, 1986). Therefore, while stressing the methodological use of ST, this chapter does not aim to analyse particular social justice concepts in detail. Rather than offering direct answers, I present a set of questions for further refl ection and discussion. The reason for this is that ST is introduced here as quite a universal theory applicable to various contexts of social justice. There are many reasons why attempts should be made to apply ST in career guidance research and analyses. First, as several contributors to this volume note, there are reasons related to social life and a widespread disappointment with the effects of the neoliberal hegemony (Saad-Filho & Johnston, 2005; Clarke, 2005; Harvey, 2005; Barry & Eckersley, 2005 ; Human Rights Watch, 2015 ; Standing, 2011). CG can be understood as one of the social processes and spheres (Kargulowa, 2012 as well as an instrument of social policy (European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network, 2010). Anchored in an economy based on neoliberal concepts and solutions, CG and social policy have suffered from funding cuts and have been seriously affected by market-orientated reforms (Meijers, 2001; Bilon, 2016; Marquand, 2004). As a result, there is an urgent need to explore and understand the complexity of current social life and the conditions in which it is embedded. Sociological theories, such as ST, can serve as a useful tool in developing a deeper understanding of social practices involved in CG. Since sociology itself is not a unified discipline (Szacki, 2012), some of the existing theories can prove more useful than others. As a post-classical theory introducing/ recalling the problem of the constitution of society, ST is still considered an effective point of departure for much sociological research (Lizardo, 2010) and is also applied in other disciplines, including psychology (Phipps, 2001; Pozzebon & Pinsonneault, 2005; Desanctis & Poole, 1994; Crowston, Sawyer, & Wigand, 2001; Duberley, Mallon, & Cohen, 2006; Barley, 1989; Kristiansen, 2014; Wheeler-Brooks, 2009). In CG research, ST can be illuminating since it focuses on understanding how and why practices acquire a particular shape and/or an institutional order. Bearing in mind that there are many versions of neoliberal social life, one can adopt van Apeldoorn’s (2009) concept of embedded neoliberalism , which, as noted in chapter 1 in this volume, stresses that neoliberal rules are always applied in very particular (local) social circumstances, and neoliberalism itself can be considered an international hegemonic project that incorporates and neutralises rival projects of social reality and politics. Therefore, sociological theories such as ST can help understand how and to what extent CG practices are shaped by the local and international (neoliberal) rules. A second set of reasons justifying the use of ST as a lens to consider CG is related to neoliberal discourses and ethic(s), with their upholding of individualisation, marketisation, the state’s withdrawal from welfare policy and the like (Harvey, 2005 ). The neoliberal notion of social justice is strongly based on Nozick’s concept of society and his accentuation of free choices (Nozick, 1974, 1989). In this context, the role of CG is at least two- dimensional. On the one hand, CG buttresses neoliberal discourse by insisting that people should adjust to the neoliberal labour market, with CG discourse supporting the idea of individualisation (Savickas et al., 2009). On the other hand, as Watts (1991 ) notes, neoliberalism needs CG for many reasons, with public CG services being a peculiar ‘relic’ of the welfare state and the concomitant notion of the distribution of social goods (Saad-Filho & Johnston, 2005). This specific position of being ‘in-between’ is where the question of the role of CG is abandoned in the analyses of current discourses, and consideration of ethic(s) and of social justice. ST can support further analyses of these issues in a at least three dimensions: (1) it focuses on social change, which can help us understand how change is possible; (2) it goes beyond individualisation and individualistic approaches; and (3) it offers some useful tools/ concepts for research—aspects of which are considered in subsequent sections of this chapter. A third set of reasons that justify the application of ST to career guidance research and analyses is associated with the development of the social sciences and the role ST itself plays in this process (Lizardo, 2010; Turner, 1986, 2006). Suffice it to mention the fact that critical theories have becoming increasingly popular in the field of education (e.g. McLaren & Farahmandpur, 2005), adult education (e.g. Brookfi eld, 2005), and other related fields in the social sciences. In an age that has earned the labels ‘post-political’ and ‘post-ideological’ (Marquand, 2004), academics urgently need sound theoretical underpinnings to inform their work. In the CG field, structuration theory can serve as system of sensitising concepts that facilitate a deliberate oscillation between ‘theory swinging in the clouds’ and empirical material ‘on the earth’ (Fine & Weis, 2009, p. 107). Such oscillation seems to be necessary in social justice analyses, where we deal with highly theorised concepts as well as with ‘reality’. In the next section of this chapter, I provide a short introduction to ST in order to demonstrate its potential for multi-layered analyses of social practices, including CG. I then discuss the potential mobilisation of ST in the field of CG.

2018-01-01T00:00:00Z Poulsen, Bo Klindt Boelskifte Skovhus, Randi Thomsen, Rie https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/36204 2018-11-16T02:23:49Z 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Widening opportunities for career guidance - research circles and social justice Authors: Poulsen, Bo Klindt; Boelskifte Skovhus, Randi; Thomsen, Rie Abstract: For a number of years, sociologists have discussed what they call a ‘Danish paradox’ (Jæger & Holm, 2007) in trying to explain why a high degree of redistribution, through income taxes and the provision of free education, social benefi ts, healthcare and so on, does not result in a far greater degree of social mobility through education. For instance, Denmark falls behind most of the other Nordic countries in terms of the ability of compulsory education to break the cycle of negative social heritage, despite similar models of society (Ekspertudvalget for fattigdom [Expert committee on poverty], 2013). A particular focus has been on the question of why free and open access to all levels of education—even supported by student grants—does not result in greater social mobility among children with parents without qualifications beyond compulsory schooling, an important issue given that education is regarded by most scholars as ‘the primary agent in the transmission of social positions in society’ (Jæger, 2009; Jæger & Holm, 2007; Jæger & Karlson, 2015; Thomsen, J. P., 2015). Furthermore, in Denmark, all pupils are provided with mandatory and free career education and guidance through most of compulsory school; but even in spite of this, the paradox of relatively low social mobility remains. In this chapter, we will discuss the potential of research circles as a collaborative method for professionals in schools to develop and support socially just practices through the widening of educational opportunities for all pupils. In order to understand the need for such a focus on social justice through education, we begin by presenting the development of neoliberal policy in Denmark and the accompanying rise in inequality.

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