Point of view: the need for moral compass in career guidance

Authors

  • Helen Colley Independent

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.20856/jnicec.5607

Keywords:

Career guidance, Disadvantaged youth, Ethics, Ethical labour, austerity, managerialism, marketisation, Connexions

Abstract

This article revisits research on the ethical tensions experienced by professional careers advisers from the former English Careers Service after they were transferred into the Connexions service as Personal Advisers. It examines how austerity distorted their practice    and intensified the ethical labour required of them. By reconsidering these dynamics through the lens of this special issue on Ethics, Philosophies and Principles, the article identifies enduring questions for contemporary career education and guidance, particularly around care and control, professional impartiality, and the need for policy on and management of career services to sustain moral compass in practice.

References

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Bauman, Z. (2004). Wasted lives: Modernity and its outcasts. Polity Press.

Career Development Policy Group. (2025). Policy brief, July 2025. The vital role of career guidance in boosting opportunities for all: Commentary on recent policy development. Career Development Policy Group. https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/2e9e2b71-fb98-45b9-bf68-875b169d5ac5/downloads/672103fc-1052-435a-bb73-f979d8af2815/Schools%20policy%20brief%20July%202025%20FINAL.pdf

Chadderton, C., & Colley, H. (2012). School to work transition services: Marginalising ‘disposable’ youth in a state of exception. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 33(3), 329-343. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2012.681895

Colley, H. (2012). Not learning in the workplace: Austerity and the shattering of illusio in public service work. Journal of Workplace Learning, 24(5), 317-337. https://doi.org/10.1108/13665621211239868

Colley, H. (2014). What (a) to do about impact: A Bourdieusian critique. British Educational Research Journal, 40(4), 660-681. https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3112

Lewin, C., & Colley, H. (2011). Professional capacity for 14-19 career guidance in England: Some baseline data. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 39(1), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/03069885.2010.531381

Published

02-05-2026

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