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Can career guidance actually do something other than just help
people to cope with an unfair world?

Interview with Prof. Tristram Hooley, International Centre for

Guidance Studies (iCeGS), University of Derby, UK

and his colleagues in the early The research paper deals quite
1990s. substantially with the situation in
the United Kingdom, and espe-
There are also other reasons for cially in England. Do you think that
us to revisit some of these de- findings and arguments supporting
bates. The paradigms through the development of better career
which career guidance is delivered guidance services in England are
have broadened since the 1990s. transferable to other environments,
We are now talking about some- other countries?
thing which is much more clearly
based around a learning paradigm, Well, we were commissioned to
In 1992 the NICEC published a experiential pedagogies and the write a piece on the economic
Briefing note “Economic Benefits development of individuals’ career impacts of guidance by Careers
of Careers Guidance”. Much has management skills. Guidance has England and we were keen to ex-
changed since then in the field of also embraced the use of new plore these issues in relation to the
education, the labour market, etc., technologies and this has in turn economic objectives of the British
and corresponding career guid- reframed the field in different ways. government.
ance services. Is the importance Finally I think that it is also worth
of these services in the current noting that the evidence base in But, although the paper was fairly
context the same as it was? the field has developed consider- country specific, I think that a lot
ably and that we now know much of the basic thinking that we have
I think that quite a lot has changed more about the impacts of career done can be applied much more
since 1992. First of all, the eco- guidance. This knowledge al- widely. Our argument is that career
nomic environment has changed. lows us to talk about the potential guidance acts on individuals’ hu-
We are still recovering from the economic impacts with much more man capital and social capital and
economic crisis and so any dis- confidence. that it supports them to make
cussion of ‘economic benefits’ has
to take account these changed
circumstances. In 1992 the cold
war was only just coming to an end
and people like Francis Fukuyama
were saying that we were ‘at the
end of history’. Twenty years later
it feels like that was a little prema-
ture, politics has not become static
and unchanging, but we have seen
a new neoliberal consensus and
it is within this context that career
guidance has operated for the last
twenty years. I’m hopeful that this
might be starting to shift, but the
political economy that we operate
in is very different to that which
was addressed by John Killeen

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