The flip side: Career guidance policies and social control

Abstract

Career guidance in most European countries is increasingly an area of policy interest. Not so much with a focus on guidance itself, but more preoccupied with other policy areas in which career guidance may have a role to play: employment, education, social inclusion, gender equality, and economic development, just to mention a few. This mirrors a strong policy focus on the role of guidance as a soft societal steering instrument. This poses dilemmas in relation to the delicate balance between guidance as an instrument for personal development, and guidance as social control.