Dear Practitioners, Teachers, and Researchers of Career Guidance and Counselling,
In combination with the NICE Academy in Paris on “Developing Career Management Skills” (April 20-23, 2021), the NICE Foundation wants to prepare an edited book with research articles and reflections on practice concerning the topic. The book will be published as an online, open-access book, meaning that everyone can read it for free. We hereby invite proposals for contributions to the book and presentations to be made at the academy.
A special feature of the planned book is that we are not only seeking scientific articles, but that we would also like to include personal reflections and case studies from career professionals. We encourage you to contribute, even if you have little experience in writing papers: At the Paris Academy, we will also offer a writing workshop to support book contributors.
If you are interested in contributing to the academy and/or the book, please submit an abstract of 100-200 words (excluding references) to paris2021@nice-network.eu by September 30, 2020.
Your abstract should include (1) a preliminary title and (2) relate to the theme of the academy (see below). Please indicate (3) whether you are proposing a “research article” or a “reflection on practice” (see below). Please also indicate, (4) whether you would like to make a presentation at the academy and contribute to the book, or if you only want to contribute to the book or make a presentation at the academy.
We look forward to your proposals together with our large committee of reviewers, including both practitioners and researchers.
Yours sincerely,
Anne Chant, Johannes Katsarov, Jacques Pouyaud, and Laurent Sovet (Editors)
We seek two types of contributions:
We hope to gain an equal number of both types of contributions and to engage both academics and practitioners as authors.
Since we value quality, excellence, and a practical orientation (utility), all articles will undergo peer review. You will receive anonymous feedback on your proposal from at least 2 colleagues. All reviews will be conducted in a double-blind fashion, i.e., you will not know whose contributions you are reviewing, and the authors will not know from whom they are receiving feedback. Our board of reviewers includes both practitioners and academics, and is also balanced in terms of gender, and includes colleagues from many European countries.
Updated Timeline
Theme
Following Sultana (2012), career management skills can be defined as “a whole range of competences which provide structured ways for individuals and groups to gather, analyse, synthesise and organise self, educational and occupational information, as well as the skills to make and implement decisions and transitions” (p. 229). They have become a key focus for implementing career educational programs and career competence-based curricula across EU countries. NICE (2016) attributes the professional role of Career Education to this important task and defines relevant competence standards for career practitioners.
When its educational component is forgotten or ignored, career guidance and counselling cannot unleash its full potential. By incorporating the promotion of career management skills in our practice, we can empower people to master their career-related challenges autonomously; we can support them in attaining more control over their career development; in becoming more independent.
And we need to do so. While globalization and innovation bring many benefits, they also challenge people to engage in lifelong learning. Organizations, too, are under continuous pressure to adapt, with many of them become less hierarchic, smaller, and more flexible. In this kind of an environment, citizens’ ability to manage their own career development becomes crucial. We need to prepare people to deal with career-related challenges across their lifetime, not only at the beginning of their careers. For this purpose, we need to support citizens’ learning and development of career management skills. However, many questions arise with this realization:
References
NICE (2016). European Competence Standards for the Academic Training of Career Practitioners. Opladen: Barbara Budrich.
Sultana, R. G. (2012). Learning career management skills in Europe: A critical review. Journal of Education and Work, 25(2), 225–248. https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2010.547846