Page 80 - Professionalising-career-guidance-practitioner-competences-and-qualification-routes-in-Europe

The distinction between ‘front office’ services (visible to clients) and ‘back office’ services
(strategic design, and the development of policy and the delivery organisation) is developed
by Vuorinen et al. (2006), specifically in relation to higher education careers service, but with
potentially much wider application. Their emphasis is on the need for different services at
different stages for any individual client, and differentiated services according to individual
need for clients at ostensibly the same time in their career development. Interwoven with the
underlying competence to deliver high quality services to clients is the capability to judge
which specific services and methodologies are appropriate at any point to meet the diversity
of client needs and how to promote this wider paradigm of guidance.
Section 6 of this report contains an overview and a detailed explanation of the
competence framework that has been introduced here. It is important to see both the
client-interaction competences and the supporting competences as areas of action which
can be viewed holistically as having a distinct and valuable function; performance of each
should always be pervaded by the foundation competences.

5.3. Understanding the competence framework

5.3.1. Words and language

Language, translation and interpretation become important issues when preparing a single
tool for use in the many languages and cultures of the Member States of the EU. This is
especially the case with career guidance, where many words used as technical terms, such
as ‘guidance’, also have a range of everyday meanings, in English and in translation to other
languages.
Interpretation raises further issues. A word which has been accurately translated, without
difficulty, to another language may be interpreted, or its intended meaning understood, in a
different way in that culture from the originating culture. Nuances in interpretation are
widespread and reflect different European cultures. One example arises where labour
markets have very different traditions. This project has noted frequent use of the terms
‘entrepreneurial’ and ‘entrepreneurship’, particularly in countries which previously had
command economies, in ways which appear to make it more or less synonymous with an
interest in engaging in private-sector business. By contrast, its current usage in English
would still reflect the sense in the French original of some element of personal risk, in the
hope of financial reward, such as in self-employment and business start-up.
Problems may arise not just between languages but within them. Young people may
adopt differences of nuance for specific words from the meanings generally understood by
the older population of their country; ‘young’ may be better interpreted in this context in
relation to social attitudes rather than chronological age, a further example of the point made
here. Frequently such shifts in the meaning of words reflect underlying value sets. Each
translation and interpretation of the competence framework needs to find an appropriate
balance between remaining consistent with the intended meaning of each statement of
competence, while also adapting the framework to national and sectoral conditions.

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