Скачать или смотреть Careers Information as an ‘Ecology’ beyond a narrow focus on guidance

In this presentation, we provide an overview of our research paper recently published open access in the journal Youth, which was based on a multi method project funded by the National Careers Institute (DEWR; formerly DESE). Our data is comprised of 15,227 social media comments, focus groups with 90 participants (age 16–24) and a nationally representative survey of 15 to 24-year-olds (n = 1103), which we used to explore young Australians’ navigation of careers information in the broadest sense. We present the idea of a ‘careers information ecology’, made up of the breadth of career-related activities and resources that young people told us they engage with. This includes school-based career guidance, government support, work experience, and advice from friends and family. We explore how these engagements are marked by social inequalities in terms of access to, confidence in, and experience of, such activities. Secondly, we pay particular attention to the productive possibilities of peer support that is sought and found in (often anonymous) social media comments and fora. In these spaces, young people looked to peers for first-hand experience in industries of interest. We consider the value of what is often the ‘kindness of strangers’ alongside (rather than instead of) traditional modes of formal careers guidance, and contend that these practices are a challenge to theorising of young people as hyper-entrepreneurial, self-interested, neo-liberal actors.

Presenters

Steven Roberts
Professor of Education & Social Justice, School of Education, Culture & Society
(Monash University)

Ben Lyall
Lecturer in Digital Media, School of Media, Film & Journalism
(Monash University)