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Weekly UpdatesImportant changes in career guidance practices that occurred during the 20th century can be partly explained by evolution of the contexts (notably, forms of work organization) in which these practices took place. What are the ultimate goals of today's practices? It seems unlikely that the individual development model, prevalent in guidance for several decades, could stand up to ethical questioning of its presumptions. The author suggests another model--that of human development founded on the following basic principle: to help individuals achieve their own humanity by helping others to achieve theirs, fully and each in their own way.
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Three main traits characterize the current concept of career development interventions in the postmodern era. First, career interventions are conceived as being applied over the life span (Super, 1980). Second, the career development process is viewed as including all the transitions that an individual experiences: school, job, and personal (Schlossberg, 1984). Third, clients are considered to be "actors" in their own career development. The goal is to help them to be the subject of their own existence. Such concepts are a major change from earlier career guidance practices that were created almost a century ago in industrialized countries. At that time, career guidance took the form of relatively directive advice given by an expert (based on a psychological approach) to adolescents (generally boys of modest circumstances) who were leaving school and beginning a job apprenticeship (Huteau, 2002; Parsons, 1909).
Why this evolution? The first part of this article deals with this question. It stresses that career counseling practices are answers to questions determined by the contexts in which they are asked. Among these contexts, those relative to the organization of work and the structure of the school system play a determinant role. Emerging contexts give rise to new questions and the need for updated career development interventions. In today's contexts, four types of career counseling practices seem to represent the current approach to career development interventions: counseling interaction, career education, experiential learning, and collective development activities. These practices are discussed briefly. The final section of this article addresses various potential goals for career development interventions with questions such as the following: Should career interventions lead clients to build a realistic view of work and the job market? Should they contribute to lessening social inequalities? Should their ai m be to form citizens? Should they focus on the optimal development of each individual? To conclude, I expand on the following thesis: The model of individual development, which forms the very heart of career interventions, today seems insufficient at a time when the three basic references of career counseling--school, work, and subjective identity--are in crisis. In the current world context, career practitioners and theoreticians cannot avoid reflecting on the "good" and the "common good." This should lead them to place concern for the development of others at the core of career interventions. This model of development of the human person goes hand in hand with a durable concept of social and economic development.
The Role of Contexts in Determining Career Counseling Questions
If career interventions are aimed at certain ends, it is fundamentally because they try to answer social questions that arise from defined social contexts. Some of these contexts are shared by all wealthy counties. This is the case, for example, with a certain philosophical concept of individuals, their responsibility, and their subjectivity. As Schlanger (1997) has shown, the current societal view is that individuals must "find" their vocation and achieve their potential through it. This vocation, or calling, is more an occupational or professional one than a personal one. Such a philosophy is obviously one of the very foundations of our concept of career guidance practices.
However, the contexts in which career counseling questions are formulated are also those of the globalization of the economy and work and of the dominant forms of the organization of production. These phenomena give rise to dilemmas that are similar from one country to another (e.g., problems related to the existence of segmented job markets, personal and occupational transitions). Career interventions that emerge from such a common background can, thus, be very similar. However, some contexts are specific to one country (e.g., the structure of the educational system and procedures for the distribution of students into different study programs). Certain career interventions seem to make sense only in a given country because of these specific features.
Career counseling can also vary according to the scientific models used to formulate career-related questions (e.g., differential psychology, developmental psychology, and social interactionism). Although these questions are determined by the social contexts in which they emerge, they may be expounded in different ways according to the scientific models in which they are constructed.
Forms of Work Organization and Career Guidance Issues
The link between forms of work organization and career counseling issues is stronger than counselors generally think. In 1955, the sociologist Alain Touraine published an article describing the three main work systems that developed during the twentieth century. His article remains a major reference today, because he anticipated very precisely the consequences that the development of automation would have on work organization. Touraine's findings showed that each of the work systems he identified coincided with a specific conceptualization of qualifications. It can also be seen that each of these concepts of qualifications coincides with a specific concept of career counseling (Guichard, 2001c). It can thus be shown that the concept of occupational qualification that is specific to the "professional work system," which dominated at the beginning of the twentieth century, leads to a focus on the notion of aptitudes (on which career guidance practices were mainly based at the beginning of the twentieth century) .
During the 1930s, a "Taylorist" work organization was much in vogue (Friedmann, 1964; Taylor, 1911). It was at that time that Edward Strong (1931) conceived a career counseling model that converged with the concept of the qualifications that were characteristic of production-line work. In this concept of work organization, the occupational identity of the operator is based on social representations shared with other members of the same work group. It is precisely this proximity of interests, shared by an individual with those groups of people involved in different occupations, that is measured by Strong's Interest Inventory (Harmon, Hansen, Borgen, & Hammer, 1994).
More recently, Donald Super's (1980) life-span, life-space career development theory is consistent with the model of competencies specific to the technical work system. This system is typified by automation and the organization of work in small groups that are responsible for results. In this context, workers must develop new operational know-how and also new competencies (e.g., the capacity to show initiative, to take responsibilities, to cooperate, to be rigorous; Zarifian, 2001). Career counseling is then a method both to formalize operational know-how and competencies and to help with occupational (or professional) and personal development.
Most recently, globalization of the economy and work has notably led to an increase in employment in the secondary job market. This is known to involve relatively unskilled and precarious occupations that are often performed under difficult conditions. Workers in this market have little chance of one day entering the primary job market. To use the expression of Paugham (2000), they are "precarious employees," workers whose occupational existence does not constitute a career. In such a context, guidance seems to be helpful primarily during occupational and personal transitions (e.g., from one job to another, from a job to further education, from one location to another).
School Structure and Student Distribution Procedures
Because forms of work organization that influence career issues are similar in all industrialized countries, these career issues are somewhat universal. In contrast, forms of school organization are determined locally. This is why certain career guidance practices vary according to school organization structures and according to procedures used to distribute students between different training tracks.
This point can be briefly illustrated by mentioning two very different models of education: the German and the French. In Germany, there are three types of middle schools (die Hauptschule, die Realschule, and das Gymnasium). Die Hauptschule is a sort of continuation of elementary school. Die Realschule is similar to a junior high school. Both Realschule and Hauptschule lead most of their students to an apprenticeship. Das Gymnasium is a sort of integrated junior and senior (traditional) high school, which mainly leads its students to the university. Technical and vocational training is essentially completed through working apprenticeships. In France, there is only one type of middle school, le college (junior high school), followed by le lycee (senior high school). Although technical and vocational training form part of the French school system, this training takes place in lycees.
The problems dealt with by career counselors clearly differ between such different types of school organization. German career counselors intervene at the time of transition from general school to vocational training at work. They help this transition to run smoothly by ensuring that choices are rational. They must clearly take into account the demands of the employer regarding skills and attitudes. In France, this transition to vocational training occurs within the very heart of the school system and academic evaluations prevail: grades in disciplines considered to be more important (e.g., math, French language) are the main criteria used to channel students to one or another specific occupational or technological program or to a more general program. Thus, teacher evaluations are of fundamental importance, and the role of counselors in this student distribution process is relatively minor. At best, counselors might support the adolescents, and their opinion may or may not be taken into account by those in a position to decide.
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