Supporting Equity Students’ 21st-Century Career Construction Needs Out-Of-The-Box Approaches

Abstract

Effective career construction for people from equity groups can help remedy intergenerational disadvantage by enabling the authoring of a new future. Career development learning (CDL) for equity students is crucial to enhance their confidence, broaden their horizons, foster self-determination and reduce their vulnerability to precarity and other future work scenarios. To achieve these outcomes, a healthy questioning and revitalisation of approaches to CDL research are needed. In this chapter, three Australian research projects focussed on increasing equity students’ participation in tertiary or higher education were appraised. The approaches, research methodology, and methods in these case projects were intertwined with their approaches to theory and theoretical model development. Ten macro-observations were made from the case projects approaches to theory, theoretical model development, methodology and methods. Lessons for CDL researchers are drawn from these ten macro-observations with numerous underutilised, out-of-the-box opportunities identified. Adopting out-of-the-box approaches to research will ultimately optimise CDL efficacy as well as help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as access to inclusive and quality education (SDG4) is a means to sustained and productive employment and decent work for all (SDG8).

The author was a chief investigator in all case projects.