Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling
The NICEC Journal is an international peer reviewed journal focused on career and career development. It is published twice a year. The Journal welcomes contributions from academics, researchers and research informed practitioners from across the world. Contributions can focus on all aspects of career development, including: - Career guidance and career education - Careers work in schools, colleges, universities, training providers, in the workplace, in organisational and in community settings. - Career theory, policy, research, and practice - Support for diverse needs and service user groups, and associated equality issues The journal is multi-disciplinary and welcomes a variety of perspectives. Some issues will be themed around an area of current interest. For further information see our Author guidelines including our publication ethics and publication malpractice statement. Open access statement This is an open access journal, which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access. Material published in the Journal is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. This means that the article may be shared freely, provided the source/author is clearly acknowledged and no changes are made to the text.
National Institute for Career Education adn COunselling (NICEC)
Information about the Career Development Institute
Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Book review: Sustainable careers: Navigating career options for a resilient and sustainable future
Review of Sustainable careers: Navigating career options for a resilient and sustainable future by Liz Painter
Copyright (c) 2025 Korin Grant https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Book review: Developing employability capital in university students: A practical guide
A review of Developing employability capital in university students: A practical guide by William E. Donald
Copyright (c) 2025 Fiona Christie https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Book review: Decent work, inclusion and sustainability
Review of Decent work, inclusion and sustainability by Deirdre Hughes and Maria Eduarda-Duarte.
Copyright (c) 2025 Anne Chant https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Career education as a practice of social justice
Welcome to the 55th issue of the NICEC journal. This issue contains a special collection on Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) in career development. This issue brings together new voices alongside established scholars, reflecting the diversity of perspectives and lived experiences that shape the field today. When this special collection was planned over a year ago, we were unaware that global events would mean that this issue could not be more relevant or timely. Less than two weeks before our call for papers was released, US President Trump had signed Executive Order 14151, titled ‘Ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing’ (The White House, 2025), whose wide-reaching implications include the obliteration of government funding for a range of progressive programmes and the rolling back of hard-fought freedoms within the US. By virtue of global interdependence, we must pay attention.
Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI)
Copyright (c) 2025 Emily Róisín Reid https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The world is their oyster? Exploring the factors that help and hinder refugee-background young people in Scotland fulfil their career potential with a focus on post-secondary education.
This qualitative study, based on interviews with nine participants, explores the post-secondary education and career pathways of refugee-background youth in Scotland. A key finding is that Scotland provides unique supports from state and voluntary sectors. However, these must contend with significant barriers, including academic challenges, and constrained progression from Further Education (FE) to university. This exploratory study, while identifying examples of best practice, concludes that significant structural barriers continue to limit career potential for refugee-background youth.
Scotland, Education, Refugee Background Youth
Copyright (c) 2025 Angela Comer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
A guidance process gap: Exploring school guidance provision in a multicultural Ireland
This research explores the guidance needs of young people from immigrant backgrounds in Ireland and the competencies of guidance counsellors in schools to address those needs. Findings indicate that the traditional school guidance approach, developed for a homogeneous student group of the majority population, is not appropriate for this cohort of young people. The author proposes that a Guidance Process Gap arises when the relationship between the young person of immigrant background and the guidance counsellor is negatively impacted by various barriers to engagement and makes recommendations to address this gap.
School Guidance, ‘Guidance Process Gap,’ multicultural, intercultural, guidance counselling, Ireland
Copyright (c) 2025 Dr. Jennifer D. McKenzie https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Creating space for resonance: Supporting career development through photovoice
This reflective article explores the use of photovoice, a participatory visual practice, to support international students navigating the emotional and relational challenges of transitioning into employment in the UK. Drawing on a small-scale project, it considers how participatory practices can foster inclusion and agency in career development. The reflection is situated within Hartmut Rosa’s account of social acceleration, using resonance as the conceptual lens to examine how shared dialogue and storytelling can counter alienation and create conditions for connection. It highlights the potential and limitations of creative methods to deepen relational engagement in career education.
International students; Social Acceleration; Resonance; Photovoice; Inclusion; Hartmut Rosa.
Copyright (c) 2025 Anna Levett https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Conceiving conscientisation and critical consciousness in career guidance and counselling: A reflection from voices in the Global South
The concept of critical consciousness has been embraced by various approaches that advocate social justice within career guidance. In this context, we revisit the Latin American origins of the ideas of conscientisation and critical consciousness, primarily associated with Paulo Freire in education and Ignacio Martín-Baró in psychology. We also examine their application in the career guidance of Rodolfo Bohoslavsky to emphasise the significance of these concepts in a global framework. We conclude that incorporating critical consciousness into career guidance and counselling is vital. However, we argue that there is a pressing need for contextualisation to refine these concepts politically and conceptually.
Critical consciousness; Global South; interculturality; career guidance and counselling; Latin America.
Copyright (c) 2025 Marcelo Afonso Ribeiro, Paula Morais Figueiredo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The influence of gender-based violence on women’s career development: Perspectives from higher education career guidance practitioners in Ireland
Women and girls are disproportionately subjected to GBV and the effects for victim-survivors are multiple and long-lasting. An under-considered dimension is the profound influence GBV has on the careers of the women who experience it. This qualitative study aimed to explore this issue from the perspective of career practitioners. The research set out to understand how career practitioners working in Irish Higher Education institutions understand GBV, how they identify this in a career context and the professional competencies they require to support female clients who may be affected by it.
Copyright (c) 2025 Lianne Rooney https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Taking a Freirean approach: Applying transformative pedagogy to create inclusive careers provision
This article considers the application of Paulo Freire's philosophy of critical pedagogy to the work of developing careers and employability support for autistic students. Drawing on Freirean principles of critical dialogue, co-creation and praxis, the authors describe their participatory approach to reflecting on inequalities that exist and engaging in transformative action to enhance inclusion. By sharing their reflections and evaluating their work through the lens of Hooley et. al (2021)'s Five signposts to a socially just approach to career guidance, they present a model for careers practitioners to engage with learners as equals and to develop emancipatory careers provision.
Freire, Co-Creation, Praxis, Social Justice, Autism
Copyright (c) 2025 Keren Coney, Jack Fitzpatrick https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The influence of career guidance and open days on first-generation students’ university choices
This article sets out to investigate the role of career guidance and university open days in shaping the higher education choices of first-generation students. Using the Carriership theoretical framework (Hodkinson, Hodkinson & Sparkes, 1996, Hodkinson & Sparkes, 1996, Hodkinson, 2009), it draws on qualitative data from surveys conducted across three post-16 education providers and semi-structured interviews with students and staff. Thematic analysis reveals that while university is often viewed as a natural next step, opportunities for career guidance to expand a young person’s horizon for action are frequently missed or not recognised. In-person open days emerge as pivotal moments in students’ decision-making journeys, offering critical ‘turning points’ that influence both what and where they choose to study.
Copyright (c) 2025 Jodie Boyd https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
A look into the future for career education and guidance in schools in England, while learning from the past
Following a ten-year review the Gatsby Benchmarks have been revised and updated. The review report emphasises the need for an infrastructure of policy, training, support and resources to provide the conditions for successful implementation. The current position is reviewed, positive elements are acknowledged and, reflecting on past experiences, recommendations are made for improving the infrastructure to facilitate the development of good career education and guidance practice in schools in England
Copyright (c) 2025 David Andrews https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Contesting discourses, building narratives: A social cluster framework for socially Just career practice
Career development practice can serve as a mechanism for social justice by enabling individuals to construct sustainable career narratives (Arthur, 2005). However, to support cohesive identity development, individuals—and the practitioners who assist them—must attend to the language used in career discourse, as language itself becomes a site of power that can expand or constrain perceived possibilities (Burr, 2015). The Cluster Approach to the Development of Identity (CADI) addresses this concern through a deliberately constructed sociolinguistic framework. This paper examines CADI’s application as an example of socially just practice, with implications for career development theory and policy.
Cluster Approach to the Development of Identity (CADI)
Copyright (c) 2025 Lucy Sattler https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Career practitioners as invisible street-level integrators
What is the most important task of career practitioners when working with migrants? Furthermore, who can define this task? Can career practitioners aim at changing people’s stories and lives? In my doctoral thesis I studied Finnish career practitioners from three viewpoints and analysed how they use power, how they see their professional agency and how they use discretion in their work. In this short text I discuss what all this means for the profession and how we could support the career practitioners to assume a more visible role in migrant integration.
migrants, integration, career guidance, street-level work, Finland
Copyright (c) 2025 Miika Kekki https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 Siobhan Neary, Michelle Stewart https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Editorial for NICEC Journal Issue 54
Copyright (c) 2025 Dr Fiona Christie https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Reauthoring My Career Narrative towards hope and agency: Twenty Years in Adult Guidance Counselling Practice
This research (McSweeney, 2024a) is a narrative inquiry self-study of the cumulative impact of recent rapid transformations experienced in my role, and of finding myself at a career crossroads after twenty years in adult guidance counselling practice. Four key, dynamic, and recursive themes were identified: changing context and its impact; social justice - a core value; re-commitment to self-care; connectedness and collaboration in practice. Engaging with these themes has enabled a process of reauthoring a more agentic and hopeful practice narrative. And points to the potential of using narrative career approaches in working with clients also navigating career transitions.
Key words: Adult guidance counselling; further education and training; career crossroads; narrative inquiry; reauthoring; Ireland
Copyright (c) 2025 Joan McSweeney https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The draw of the law: Midlife women lawyers seeking to refocus on their legal careers after a break
This paper explores the drivers and experiences of midlife women lawyers seeking to refocus on their legal careers after a break. Studies suggest professional women rarely return to previous roles, and research on the careers of midlife women is limited. Using reflexive thematic analysis, a qualitative study involving 11 midlife women lawyers identified three themes - ‘It’s (all) about time’, ‘Expectations, roles and identity’, and ‘Finding a new path – bridging the gap’ and the overarching theme of ‘Emotions’. The research expands literature on women’s careers at midlife providing a new model to support their career development.
Copyright (c) 2025 Amanda Roberts https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Climate change and career: Strategic leaders’ perspectives of the role for environmental issues in career guidance
Meeting the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development will require meaningful changes to lives, learning and work. This includes how we think about careers and the practice of career development. This study investigated attitudes to environmental concerns and explored the role these concerns in career guidance. The individuals involved in the study were mid-career leaders studying on a level 7 leadership programme. Participants revealed that they feel environmental issues are important and relevant to their careers, but when it comes to including environmental issues in career development, they hold varied perspectives and complex feelings about what role it can play, if any. This paper adds to the current discourse around and understanding of ‘green guidance’ and posits some implications for addressing environmental challenges through career guidance.
green guidance, career guidance, strategic leaders, environmental issues, career development
‘Human life is useless without career!’ Do individuals talk about career in the same way as business and parliament?
Findings from an interdisciplinary study using analytical frameworks from the field of applied linguistics suggest that conceptualisations of career currently dominant in business and parliamentary discourse are largely, although not universally, reproduced within individuals’ everyday communication. The prominence of these dominant conceptualisations can be revealed through close attention to grammar and word choice, a reflective process enabling Career Development Professionals to comprehend and challenge, if necessary, unproblematised norms produced within a neoliberal social context.
Copyright (c) 2025 Valerie Rowles https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Evaluating career coaching for employed adults
This article examines the practical challenges of evaluating the impact of career development interventions with employed adults. It does this through a case example of a one-to-one career coaching programme offered to all individuals working in primary healthcare in England. The paper describes the coaching intervention and its context, followed by the development of an evaluation logic model and data collection tools. Results are summarised (for more detail see Carter and Hirsh, 2024). Reflections on the evaluation approach, methods and tools are shared with the aim of encouraging others to evaluate career interventions, especially with employed adults, in other contexts.
Career coaching, career development, evaluation, employed adults, healthcare, England
Copyright (c) 2025 Wendy Hirsh, Alison Carter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Graduate career development: two empirically-derived models of the career decision-making processes of students and graduate in the UK.
In this article I report on a strand of research, conducted with career practitioners, students and graduates, that has explored the career development of UK university students. The aims of the research have been threefold: to address a gap in the literature which has overlooked the decision-making processes of this group; to contribute towards career practitioner training; and to increase the evidence-base for career practitioners. Here I outline some of the key findings, position them within the current literature, and explain how they can be used to benefit our practice, our profession and our clients.
Copyright (c) 2025 Julia Yates https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Career Stage Framework: facilitating enhanced engagement with students, institutional partners, employers, and alumni.
Segmenting higher education students into three distinct groups based on their career stage can significantly boost engagement by providing relevant career learning. This approach allows careers professionals to tailor the employability curriculum to meet the diverse needs of their students. It also benefits institutional stakeholders by offering a nuanced understanding of impact measures and national metrics. Moreover, segmenting by career stage enhances employer engagement beyond the narrow focus on the graduate labour market and fosters more meaningful and diverse connections with alumni.
Copyright (c) 2025 Laura Brammar, Victoria Wade, James Weaver https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The impact of child loss on career decision-making and trajectory.
This small-scale mixed methods research project sought to explore the impact of child loss on career decision-making and trajectory, through an online survey completed by bereaved parents. The findings highlighted that grief is unique, but there were considerable, shared experiences amongst survey participants which impact on career trajectories, notably an ongoing emotional response to bereavement. Detailed analysis of the data revealed three key themes – the depth, intensity and longevity of grief symptoms; uneven employer support; and changing perceptions of career. The longevity of grief symptoms, and the lack of engagement with formal Careers Support, were the most surprising findings, which have not been adequately researched previously.
: child loss; impact on career; career decision-making
Copyright (c) 2025 Jillian Millar https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Copyright (c) 2024 Michelle Stewart https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Copyright (c) 2024 Peter Robertson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
This editorial is an introduction to career and sustainability, and provides an overview of this special issue.
Copyright (c) 2024 Tristram Hooley https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Career development for university students: Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic
Within the diverse worldwide population of university students and graduates, those who experience global lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the school-to-work transition may encounter particular challenges in their career development and job-seeking issues. These challenges include psychological impacts, career uncertainty, changes in academic and social life, and a lack of job opportunities due to the disruption of the labour market. The current article discusses these career challenges and focuses on two primary theoretical strategies to help students explore available resources, benefit from unplanned events, and construct and enact meaningful career narratives. The happenstance learning theory (HLT) and narrative career theory are applied regarding helping clients with their career development challenges. These theories address the challenges faced by university students who encountered the unplanned event of the pandemic, especially around career anxiety and uncertainty.
Copyright (c) 2025 Charles P. Chen, Xiaoqing Guo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
A Career Domain Approach to Adolescents’ Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-being
The theoretical understanding and empirical measurement of adolescents’ career well-being is limited to the hedonic dimension of well-being. Although valuable, a more integrated framework for assessing adolescents’ career well-being that includes an eudaimonic well-being perspective is needed. Arguments in this paper are premised on three research questions: What does career well-being mean from the eudaimonic perspective of wellbeing, and how is this different from the hedonic definition of career wellbeing? How can eudaimonic career well-being be measured or operationalised among adolescents? What are the practical implications of an integrated framework for assessing adolescents’ career well-being?
Copyright (c) 2025 Esther Anwuzia https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0