Five signposts to a socially just approach to career guidance

Abstract

‘Social justice’ can mean different things to different people. Such ambiguity does not have to be a weakness as there is value to a diversity of analyses, approaches and suggested remedies to injustice. Interest is growing as to whether career guidance can be one of these remedies by actively taking a stance in support of social justice. A social justice approach to career guidance is built on three main tenets: firstly, that individual’s careers are shaped by the contexts and communities within which they live, study and work; secondly, that we live in an unequal world which means that the opportunities that individuals have to develop their careers are unequal. Any theory that purports to explain how career works needs to recognise this inequality; and thirdly, that career guidance has the capacity to intervene in this unequal world and support people to flourish.