The number of families in England choosing to withdraw their children from school has grown significantly since 2016. In this manuscript, we present findings from action research with purposefully sampled home educating young people (n = 9), parents/carers (n = 16), staff from Career Connect (n = 4), staff from schools and colleges (n = 4), staff…

In this study, we aimed to develop and test the effectiveness of a training programme to foster teachers' competencies in the provision of career development learning (CDL) programmes for children. Forty-eight middle school teachers working with socioeconomically disadvantaged students in Eastern Turkey participated in the study. The Wilcoxon…

Career guidance has been criticised for focusing on individual agency, complying with discourses that "responsibilise" individuals to manage their careers. A social justice approach argues for a more nuanced recognition of the interplay of structure and agency, which raises questions about how to do this in practice? In this paper we…

We present an analysis of narratives that emerged from a recent interdisciplinary design thinking careers intervention exploring how employability is represented within one UK University. We conducted a critical discourse analysis using a policy analysis framework that revealed four emergent problem representations. These exposed tacit assumptions…

Career exploration enables children to gain self- and occupational knowledge, and to assign meaning to what is learnt at school. Children's career exploration can be conceived as a foundation for career developmental learning and academic success. In this manuscript, we review articles published over the last five years to address whether these…

This integrative literature review aimed to synthesise published research on the use of expressive, reflective and creative writing in a career context, known as Career Writing. Studies included English-language research from peer-reviewed journals published between 1990 and 2020 with intervention(s) involving writing for personal and professional…

Historically, responsibility for career education and guidance in English schools was shared between the school and an external careers service. The Education Act 2011 transferred responsibility for career guidance to schools and has created a need for the new role of a 'careers leader'. In this article, we report on research in 27 English state…

A consistent criticism from the emergent literature on children's career development has been that career-related learning in primary schools has received limited attention. A particular gap in the literature is the application of careers theory applied to pedagogy and employer engagement within primary schools. This article examines an innovative…

This article reports the development and psychometric requisites of Visions About Future (VAF), a measure to assess optimism, pessimism, and hope in early adolescence. Two different studies involving Italian middle school students were conducted. With the first study, the items were developed and the factor structure verified by using item…

Career-development theories offer a variety of configurations to help people make sense of both epistemology and pedagogy. This chapter considers the meaning associated with learning for living and the potential for existing and new frameworks to be applied to practice in twenty-first century schooling. Back in 1996, a new career learning theory…

Positive psychology has been an influential movement within psychology in the early years of the twenty-first century. It is now timely to assess the value of its contribution to career education and guidance. This paper provides a critique of this perspective. Positive psychology can enrich approaches to career development. It can provide a…

An analysis of both theoretical and empirical literature suggests that career counselling should begin in childhood and that it should be an ongoing process based on a narrative approach. The basis of this paradigm is an insightful reflection over one's life history, which requires tapping into the capacities of autobiographical memory. At the…

There is a long history of teachers and schools being involved in the delivery of career education and guidance. As the breadth of career education and guidance activity in English schools grew throughout the twentieth century it became increasingly necessary to have an individual within the school responsible for leading and managing this…

English independent schools are not required to follow government statutory guidance in a number of aspects including career education and guidance, and yet many are actively engaged in careers work and this has caught the attention of policymakers. State schools are subject to statutory guidance but, according to Ofsted and other authorities, the…

This article provides a five-year historical synopsis of how central government policies are impacting on careers work in England's secondary schools. It shows attempts to reshape and re-engineer careers provision for young people, through an evolving careers experiment. The extent to which such exogenous arrangements are facilitating and/or…