Making a Difference? Developing Career Education as a Socially Just Practice

Abstract

Career education plays a crucial role during compulsory secondary schooling by providing students with opportunities to gain diverse insights into the multiple ways in which social, political and economic discourses shape and position concepts of self, career, opportunity and justice. It hence has the potential to make a difference to how young people construct their career(s), make sense of their lives and critically engage with the world but the current career development focus on skills acquisition, competencies and self-management may be limiting opportunities for wider critical educational learning, leading to a restricted conceptualisation of career(s). In this article I draw on the work of Young (1990) to explore the concepts of social injustice and injustice, to consider how these intersect with career education and to outline ways in which career education might engage in anti-oppressive practice. While the examples presented and the issues are from New Zealand, they are applicable elsewhere.