Career counsellors’ professional agency when working with migrants

Abstract

AbstractThis article analyses the professional agency of counsellors working with migrants. Using Bernstein’s concepts of classification and framing, our thematic analysis draws on interviews with career counsellors from both Finland and Sweden. The results highlight a need for counsellors to recognise the differences in situations of students with migrant backgrounds and their native peers and adjust their counselling accordingly. They also indicate that counsellors struggle with implementation of the core of their professional agency as a result of societal domination of the counselling agenda and indicate a need for more collective, society-level challenging of this agenda.