It is a pleasure for me to comment on my first issue as editor of our journal, which is beginning its tenth year of existence. However, being the editor of a scientific journal is a difficult task. For this reason, I would like to ask all the members of the editorial and advisory boards for their support in helping me make good decisions for our journal in the future. Before commenting on the different contributions in this issue, I would first like to thank Raoul Van Esbroeck for the excellent work he has done in the last 10 years as the editor of the IJEVG. As he mentioned in his last editorial, it was a very challenging task. Having been co-editor since 2009, myself, I had the opportunity to experience the difficulty of making decisions about high quality manuscripts written by colleagues and peers. But it is also a very interesting task which allows me to remain up to date about a wide range of topics that I do not research, myself. I have no doubt that the hard work put forth by Raoul and the quality of the articles that have been published has placed the IJEVG in a position to be considered as a reference publication in our field. The IJEVG seems to be especially recognized for its international perspective in publishing articles that confront models and present practices and research emerging from different cultural settings. Considering all the work done by Raoul, it will be very difficult to succeed him, but I will try my best to pursue the standard that he has set. I’m also very pleased to announce that Raoul will serve as a member of the editorial board. We will, thus, continue to benefit from his vast experience of leadership in this high quality publication.

The current issue presents four very different contributions. “Individual predictors of adolescents’ vocational interest stabilities,” by Andreas Hirschi, newly appointed as Junior Professor at Leuphana University, is a nice and complementary contribution to “Increasing the career choice readiness of young adolescents: An evaluation study,” published with Damian Läge in IJEVG 8(2) in 2008 about the effectiveness of a specific class intervention. The current article clearly indicates that the coherence and the differentiation of vocational interests predict the stability of the interest profile of individuals. These results are of course in line with Holland’s theory (1997) and underscore the importance of individual factors in the process of interest development. It is notable that stability also always implies instability and explaining both might be an interesting research goal for the future. Indeed, stability as instability might be a desirable attribute depending on the situation in which the individual might be.

In “The validity of a German version of the Career Exploration Survey,” Jens Rowold and Kathrin Staufenbiel present a validation study of the German version of the Career Exploration Survey (CES). This instrument was developed by Stumpf, Colarelli, and Hartmann (1983) based on Super’s conception of career exploration (1984). This study explains in detail how they had to adapt this measurement instrument in order to obtain a clear and sound German version. Although a formal comparison between the German version and other language versions was not possible, this article emphasized the importance of adopting a multi-national approach when developing new measurement instruments in our field and making the data from validation studies systematically available. This contribution is certainly a first step towards further research about career exploration in different cultural settings.

“Career coping styles: Differences in career attitudes among secondary school students,” by Isabel N. Janeiro and José Ferreira Marques is, again, a contribution rooted in Super’s (1990) important theoretical contributions to our field. More specifically, the authors studied the relationship between four career coping styles and career maturity. The adaptive style seems associated with a higher level of career maturity than the three other styles: superficial, insecure, and pessimistic. This confirms the conceptual relationship between career maturity and Savickas’ (1997) construct of adaptability. The results of this empirical study are especially convincing due to the very large number of participants, the well-known and valid instruments used, and the stability of the clusters found across sub-samples. Similar studies to be conducted in a more diverse population should consider the development of these attributes across time.

Finally, in “(Re)constructing career education as a socially just practice: An antipodean reflection,” a conceptual article, Barrie A. Irving addresses the very important question of social justice for the practice in our field. Counselors in the field of educational and vocational guidance are indeed always confronted with two sometimes divergent interests or engagements: those of our counselees and our ethical engagements, which should include the promotion of social justice. This conflict might explain the tendency to underestimate the importance of the issue of social justice in our field. Moreover, improving social justice is complicated because societies and some policies induce social inequalities. On the other hand, individuals who do not behave according to the expectations of our societies might be marginalized and discriminated against. In this context, the presentation of different social justice models might indeed be of importance in informing our practice. Moreover, this contribution may give some indication of how culture might have an impact on the perception of social justice. I’m convinced that the analyses of the situation in New Zealand might be of interest for researchers and practitioners all over the world.

We hope you will find that issue 10(1) provides you with a number of new and interesting insights and that it contributes to your own professional development. We wish you pleasant reading in the hopes that it will stimulate your own thoughts and lead to the starting point of another contribution to our journal.