This paper examines briefly the sociopolitical and philosophical bases of career guidance. It identifies its pragmatic roots in a political era that has passed and is characterized by discrete, decontextualized activities aimed broadly at fostering development. I maintain that specific elements of career guidance erroneously assumes a transcendent view of self that is knowable through objective means. This dominant discourse of career guidance is prescriptive and, it is argued, only one among many possible discourses of the self. While specific alternatives are not proffered, the constructivist view is highlighted as one way of furthering the conversation about career guidance, though it too engages in a self-contradictory language game characteristic of the epistemological world-view.
Systematic career guidance, and more recent views labelled "constructivist" approaches (Peavy, 1994), certainly do not comprise the final vocabulary on the topic. This paper examines the nature and place of career guidance within the culture of education. It does not offer alternatives; rather it serves as an expression of "curiosity about possible alternatives" (Rorty, 1989). Engaging in an alternative discourse entails a sort of leveling of the dominant systematic approach. Specifically, the incommensurability of systematic career guidance with the cultural psychology perspective will be proposed by focusing on two points:
1. Career guidance continues largely to ignore its sociopolitical and cultural roots.
2. The philosophical basis for career guidance assumes the existence of a core, unified self capable of self-knowledge.
The dominant discourse of career guidance in Canada may be described as a "systematic" view. It proceeds along three broad strategies of engagement with students: (1) Providing students with information, as opposed to stimulating active searching; (2) Utilizing tests as objective measures of student abilities and aspirations; (3) Assuming the student as a discontinuous, discrete knower of self. It is characterized by coordinated programs that commence with elementary school-aged children and continue throughout the educational lifetime of the individual. This planned approach is outcome based, relying on clearly stated objectives and evaluative procedures. Systematic, or comprehensive, approaches "endeavour to specify clearly the results sought and the specific methods by which such results will be obtained" (Herr & Cramer, 1996, p. 46). It should be noted that not all school career guidance is conceived as a systematic approach. And there are specific elements of career guidance that do not or cannot adhere to programming.
The philosophical traditions underlying the systematic approach to career guidance illustrate a view of humankind that asserts the existence of a core self, an essence, and implies the possibility that we can be knowers of the truth about ourselves and the world by engaging in structured and objective inquiry based on epistemologically-centred philosophy and positivist traditions. It also possesses an ethic: it proposes a moral obligation to engage in guidance activities since gaining self-knowledge will allow us to be better citizens.
It would be tempting merely to describe this view as paternalistic, but this would inadequately reflect the deeper issue inherent in such a view. A basic assumption is that there is a knowable human essence, a self that exists and that can be identified in its objective core. Further, individuals can achieve self-knowledge with the assistance of another who possesses the necessary tools for uncovering this truth about the self and the world. The view also ignores the significant cultural bias that links self-knowledge with happiness and that ignores the plight of millions of children in the non-Western world who have more pressing concerns such as food, shelter, basic human rights, and a clean environment (See Apple, 1996).
Contemporary conceptualizations of career guidance appear to be linked to the economic and political decisions taken by the American government in response to the threat posed by the then Soviet Union, i.e. the space race, the arms race, and the perceived decline in American superiority in maths and science (Shertzer & Stone, 1981; Vanzandt & Hayslip, 1994; Stone & Bradley, 1994). Historical accounts of the American guidance movement have noted earlier important events in its chronology. However, formal funding, widespread training, and articulated programs of career guidance counselling proliferated in the U.S. following the events culminating in the Cold War. Of course, the appeal to democratic virtues is linked to modernist notions that value individualism, empiricism, and competition. As Davis (1996) notes, "the desire for progress lies at the core of all modern educational philosophies" (p. 141).
While progress itself is not inherently a bad thing, contextualizing career guidance within an ideological drive toward political hegemony and cultural dominance, where the parameters constituting progress are ill-defined and unpredictable, casts it in the guise of social Darwinism. Notwithstanding the recent geo-political changes that preempt such a system, the questionable effectiveness of career guidance programs demands critical inquiry into the "privileged sets of descriptions" (Rorty, 1996) employed by contemporary guidance counsellors. For example, how does career guidance counselling confront the inequities apparent between the rich and the poor in Western democracies? It is ironic that a popular textbook on the topic of career guidance documents the need for more systematic career guidance services based on the results of surveys conducted by business organizations citing the "growing problem of alienated, disadvantaged, disconnected, and other at-risk youth" (Herr & Cramer, 1996, p. 414). Having institutionalized a system that perpetuates the uneven distribution of wealth, the architects of systematic guidance counselling criticize the results and call for more of the same. In reality, this succeeds only to reproduce the cultural status quo (Bruner, 1996).
Vanzandt and Hayslip (1994, p. 3), in a textbook focusing on programmatic elements of guidance counselling, pose a series of questions to encourage the counsellor to think about their own philosophy of guidance: "Why are teachers so reluctant to let counsellors in their classrooms? Why don't administrators provide more support to guidance programs? Why are guidance positions some of the first to be cut when there is a budget crisis?" Similarly, another text by Stone and Bradley (1994) includes a section at the beginning of the book that "could help schools articulate why a guidance counsellor is needed". Obviously, we live in times where every profession is susceptible to marginalization through economics, but the guidance profession seems particularly prone to self-scrutiny and repeated public justifications of its continued existence. Perhaps this sense of vulnerability and angst results from the awareness that career guidance counselling clearly needs students, but students do not of necessity require career guidance. Guidance may be construed as a "privileged representation of essences", invoking Rorty's (1979) terminology to suggest the presupposition of what is good for students.
A fundamental contradiction is apparent between the philosphical traditions of systematic guidance counselling and its pragmatic ties to the educational system. The freedom and dignity of the individual that is the centrepiece of the principles of systematic guidance, is located within a pedagogy that continues to foster dependence and decontextualized learning. Shertzer and Stone (1981) reflect this commonplace belief held by the practitioners of systematic guidance when they suggest that, "Guidance is concerned primarily and systematically with the personal development of the individual". The phrase "facilitating development" is ubiquitous amongst statements of philosophical belief for school guidance programs, yet development (moral, cognitve, social) occurs without the aid of facilitation. More importantly, it assumes knowledge of some universal principles to aid the development of students regardless of culture, socioeconomics, family background, or personal readiness. Using standardized assessments, surveys, and aptitude tests to pronounce that student X is socially isolated, vocationally immature, and underachieving might sound like objective grounds for intervention. However, it is presumptuous to assume that student X perceives the situation in this light, and self-deceiving to believe that such a program can provide the proper path for student X's development. Systematic guidance programming is one from amongst many vocabularies that can describe and assist the career development of student X. It presents student X with the description of herself when there is a multiplicity of potential descriptors. It seems more appropriate for guidance counselling to foster the choosing of these alternative vocabularies of being.
The self is conceived as a cohering unity in the systematic approach to guidance counselling. Few textbooks on guidance fail to declare its focus on strategies, activities, and interventions aiding the development of the individual. Typically, career guidance programs concern themselves with the broad concept of identity and interventions that will assist the work identity of students. The theoretical bases for identity development generally conceive of the self as internally localized and knowable through objective means. Structured activities are devised that will lead to a changed, more "developed" self. The concept of the self constitutes a significant body of work in disparate fields of academic endeavour, with most contemporary conceptualizations being incommensurate with systematic career guidance.
Rorty (1979, 1989) proposes that a conscious departure from the established norm of systematic philosophy be undertaken. Departing from traditional views of self is accomplished through the creation of new metaphors of the self, adopting another language from the multitude of possible languages used to describe the world. Philosophers in Rorty's tradition do not propose to have found any objective truth, or to offer any accurate representations of how the world is. It is a tricky task since it involves having "to decry the very notion of having a view, while avoiding having a view about having a view" (Rorty, 1979, p. 371). This vision concerning what philosophy should attend to may be applied to the entire field of career guidance. As it is currently conceived, career guidance attempts to present a permanent framework for the development of the student, a framework that relies upon a world of myriad aptitude, achievement, and interest tests that presume to mirror the nature of the student and provide a point of departure for further career exploration. Further, it ignores the individual student as the organizer of personal meaning by providing both the path for stimulating career awareness and the information in a manner that is decontextualized and fosters passivity. To take a less critical view of systematic guidance would be to suggest that it is merely the best approach, the most effective vocabulary that we have of aiding the developing career identity of students. Unfortunately, the pragmatics of the approach have taken on a life of their own and have become intertwined with notions of personal freedom. To engage in career guidance activities is seen as a liberating practice, as contributing to the optimal development of the self. But the self can more accurately be seen as a mirroring of language. The self is a "tissue of contingencies" (Rorty, 1989), and as such, cannot be objectively known through ennunciating a set of "facts" that may be gleaned at any particular moment in time. Yet, this is precisely what the vocabulary of the career guidance program proposes: to present the student with an objective portrayal of herself and prescribe the route to change via selected activities. This amounts to no more than a shot in dark.
Constructivist notions of career counselling advanced by Peavey (1993) attempt to advance another way of approaching career counselling, but even these speculations are offered by invoking the tone of a privileged set of descriptions. There is a sense that this discourse of systematic guidance has already acquired privileged status, and one must ask, have we learned anything, or are we still making the same mistakes? Peavey, unintentionally I believe, has engaged in a self-contradictory language game. To pose such a transformation of approaches is to invoke another theory of knowledge about the nature of reality, but there is nothing to validate this particular vocabulary. One might speculate on the course of this theory by simply referring to Bruner's (1996) observation that, "Eventually new genres become old banalities" (p. 139). However, Peavy should be commended for his attempt to continue the conversation, to break with traditional conceptualizations and dare to challenge the dominant discourse. As he suggests, "distinctions between different kinds of career counselling are becoming more artificial. Such distinctions are more a function of bureaucratic turf than of a realistic knowledge of client need and counselling process" (Peavey, 1993, p. 136). It is worthy to note that his views occupy a scant three columns in a 724-page textbook (Herr & Cramer, 1996) that is widely regarded as the standard in the field of career guidance counselling.
As indicated near the start of this paper, it is not the intention of the author to articulate an alternative view of systematic career guidance. Rather, its goal is to explore the world of possibility by examining the origins of contemporary career guidance in the traditional epistemological view, and urge a continuation of the dialogue that is occurring across disciplines concerning the nature of the self. The ensuing conversation should not be construed as a denigration of worthy efforts by career guidance counsellors. It is, however, an attempt to spark a questioning of the old paradigms. There should not be any danger in such questioning, for as Rorty contends, "Professions can survive the paradigms which gave them birth" (Rorty, 1979, p. 393). Without resorting to self-contradictory language games myself, I propose that Freud's suggestion (cited in Rorty, 1989), that we let chance be "worthy of determining our fate", is as rational an approach as any.
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