Emerging insights from a peer-to-peer social justice careers education programme
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20856/jnicec.5109Keywords:
Higher education, career education, career learning, social justice, peer-to-peerAbstract
The Inclusive Careers Education Ambassador (ICEA) programme at King’s College London was designed to focus on the careers education experience of historically underrepresented groups in UK higher education. The project has been co-created and delivered by staff and students within the Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences (NMES). Student researchers took an active participant observation approach when reviewing the ICEA programme, drawing on social justice principles. This article explores the rationale for the programme and evaluates key outcomes from the first two years. It finds that by combining extensive training, flexibility in co-creating peer activities, and a department-focused approach, the programme has enthused and engaged stakeholders, and has enabled transformative learning experiences across the Faculty’s staff and student body.
References
Bermingham, J., Nathwani, T., & Van Essen-Fishman, L. (2020). Higher education outcomes: How career satisfaction among graduates varies by ethnicity. Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). https://www.hesa.ac.uk/files/Career-satisfaction-byethnicity-20200922.pdf
Blain, A. (2023). A peer-to-peer approach to career education through a social justice lens. Career Guidance for Social Justice Blog, May 22. https://careerguidancesocialjustice.wordpress.com/2023/05/22/a-peer-to-peer-approach-to-career-education-through-asocial-justice-lens/
Bridgstock, R., Grant-Imaru, M., & McAlpine, A. (2019). Integrating career development learning into the curriculum: Collaboration with the careers service for employability. Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability, 10(1), 56–72. https://doi.org/10.21153/jtlge2019vol10no1art785
Crenshaw, K. (2013). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. In K. Maschke (Ed.) Feminist legal theories (pp. 23-51). Routledge.
Daubney, K. (2022), “Teaching employability is not my job!”: redefining embedded employability from within the higher education curriculum. Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, 12(1), pp. 92-106. https://doi.org/10.1108/heswbl-07-2020-0165
Freire, P. (1970/2005). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum International Publishing Group.
Frigerio, G., Chen, L., McArthur, M., & Mehta, N. (2022). Is careers work white? A collaborative research project with minority ethnic students of career development practice. Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling, 49(1), 10–17. https://doi.org/10.20856/jnicec.4903
Gregor, M. A., Ganginis Del Pino, H. V., Gonzalez, A., Soto, S., & Dunn, M. G. (2019). Understanding the Career Aspirations of Diverse Community College Students. Journal of Career Assessment, 28(2), 202-218. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072719849872
Hooley, T., & Sultana, R. (2016). Career guidance for social justice. Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling, 36(1), 2–11. https://doi.org/10.20856/jnicec.3601
Hooley, T., Sultana, R., & Thomsen, R. (2021). Five signposts to a socially just approach to career guidance. Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling, 47(1), 59-66. https://doi.org/10.20856/jnicec.4709
Johnson, L., & Morris, P. (2010). Towards a framework for critical citizenship education. The Curriculum Journal, 21(1), 77-96. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585170903560444
Long, R., & Hubble, S. (2022). Careers guidance in schools, colleges and universities (England). House of Commons Library. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/researchbriefings/cbp-7236/
Manoharan, A. (2020). Inclusion and employability: Supporting all students to become future-ready graduates through the curriculum. ETH Learning and Teaching Journal, 2(2), 73–77.
McGregor-Smith, R. (2017). Race in the workplace: The McGregor-Smith Review. Luminous. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/race-in-the-workplace-themcgregor-smith-review
Mercer-Mapstone, L., Dvorakova, S. L., Matthews, K. E., Abbot, S., Cheng, B., Felten, P., Knorr, K., Marquis, E., Shammas, R., & Swaim, K. (2017). A Systematic literature review of students as partners in higher education. International Journal for Students as Partners, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v1i1.3119
Oxley, L., Bansal, A., Digale, A., Kalamohan, K & Brown, B. (2022) ‘Peers as positive role models: Developing Inclusive Careers Education’, in Students as co-creators: AGCAS Phoenix Journal February 2022. AGCAS (Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services), UK. https://www.agcas.org.uk/Knowledge-Centre/a82ca1ba-5483-47c6-af6f2be6b9e3714f
Phoenix, A., & Pattynama, P. (2006). Intersectionality. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 13(3), 187–192. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506806065751
Ranavaya, V. (2022). Decolonising career guidance: Experiences of female, BAME career guidance professionals through the lens of intersectionality theory. Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling, 48(1), 40–47. https://doi.org/10.20856/jnicec.4806
Shury, J., Vivian, D., Turner, C., & Downing, C. (2017). Graduates’ career planning and its effect on their outcomes. Research report for Department of Education, Government Social Research. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/graduates-career-planning-andits-effect-on-their-outcomes
Universities UK (2019). Closing the gap: student stories. https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/latest/insights-and-analysis/closing-gap-student-stories
Universities UK and National Union of Students (2019). Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Student Attainment at UK Universities: Closing the gap. https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Documents/2019/bame-student-attainment-uk-universities-closing-the-gap.pdf
WISE (Women into Science and Engineering) Campaign (2023), Latest Workforce Statistics – Released April 2023. https://www.wisecampaign.org.uk/latest-workforce-statistics-released-april-2023/
Woodfield, L. & McIntosh, R. (2022). Employability blog series: three policy turning points that changed the higher education employability agenda. 11 March. https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2022/03/11/employability-blog-series-three-policy-turning-points-that-changed-thehigher-education-employability-
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 1. In submitting an article, the Author hereby grants to NICEC the exclusive first publication right to the paper submitted by him / her for inclusion in the publication named above and the non-exclusive rights thereafter to publish and authorise the publication of all articles and all parts, adaptations and abridgements thereof in all forms and media throughout the world. 2. In consideration for the above grant of rights, and subject to delivery of acceptable material, NICEC hereby undertakes to prepare for publication and publish the paper unless prevented by circumstances beyond its control. 3. The Author agrees that NICEC may make minor changes to areas such as formatting, spelling, referencing, layout or punctuation, to ensure quality and uniformity of style. 4. NICEC agrees that the Author may share the final published PDF of their article (e.g. publication to the Author’s web profile, or institutional repository). 5. The Author warrants to NICEC that in respect of the paper submitted: (i) it does not infringe any existing copyright or licence; (ii) except where the Author, at the time of submission of the paper, notifies NICEC, the paper is original; (iii) the Author has the full power to make this assignment and that this assignment does not infringe the rights or licence of any other person, and that where there a co-author, the co-author also fully agrees to the terms in this document; (iv) the paper contains nothing defamatory or otherwise unlawful and no information has been obtained in contravention of legislation currently in force (v) submission of the paper demonstrates acceptance of all these conditions.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.