Anchoring career guidance in the Mediterranean? : in search of southern perspectives

Abstract

This chapter introduces the goals and aspirations for this volume, showing how the different chapters build on earlier studies of career guidance in the region in an effort to develop theoretically informed accounts of the field as it is conceived and practised in context. The value of using the Mediterranean as a lens through which to consider career guidance is discussed, suggesting that by so doing, new insights can be generated that promote a deeper understanding of what career guidance might involve, and the forms and shapes it can assume. Such intellectual labour, it is argued, is necessary if we are to develop Southern perspectives, which can serve to trouble mainstream understandings of what career guidance entails, particularly if context-sensitive accounts of the public and private benefits of guidance are to be articulated.