All day
Drammen, auditorium A2503 and on Zoom
The title of the thesis: 'Meaning-making career counseling Career counselors’ understandings and experiences of career construction counseling in a Norwegian context'
Summary
Lately, the need for a “counter discourse” in career counseling in Norway has been highlighted - either as a counterpart to the knowledge capital and political function of the discipline, or as an alternative to the learning and competence perspective. Several call for a stronger emphasis on identity development, cooperation and holistic thinking about human life. This study explores such a possible counter discourse, career construction counseling (CCC), which is a narrative approach within social constructionism, based on Mark Savickas’ career construction theory.
In the study’s theoretical line (article 1), CCC is contextualized in relation to the career counseling discipline in Norway considering theory and international research, where the discussion is on both the potential and challenges of using CCC. The study’s empirical line (article 2 and 3) is based on an action research project, where 16 career counselors from various sectors in Norway participated and received training in CCC, practiced the intervention with each other and their own clients, and reflected on and discussed their experiences through multistage focus group interviews. Together with an overarching discussion of the findings in the extended summary, this study contributes knowledge on several levels:
- The understandings and experiences of the career counselors demonstrate that CCC may benefit clients to find their own engagement through increased self-insight, meaning, and completeness and cohesion in their lives, where the CCC’s question about early recollections is found to have great importance.
- According to the study, CCC can contribute in certain ways to promoting access to decent work, using the psychological view of the psychology of working theory, to satisfy self-determination needs and the need for one’s behaviors to be congruent with authentic and meaningful goals, as well as contribution needs.
- The study shows the potential that the use of the “career buttons” in the new national quality framework for career guidance has beyond promoting career learning, as explained through the adapted model “meaning-making career buttons”.
- In addition, the study provides a discussion of what career counseling can be, as well as what the career counselor’s role can involve, and a discussion on how knowledge about CCC can be acquired. Through both the concrete and the overarching discussions, the study brings to light the psychological underpinning of the career counseling profession in Norway.