22nd September
10.30am
Keynote 1: Michael Arthur
Palmer 109
This opening address will review over thirty years of "career studies" since its inception at Massachusetts Institute
of Technology in the 1970s. Significant contributions to the unfolding conversation cover the definitions of the
terms career and career development, the disciplines contributing to the field, the need for interdisciplinary
conversations, the contrast between organizational and "boundaryless" career perspectives, the widening of
international comparisons and the emergence of the global, knowledge-driven economy. The range of emergent
insights raises a central question about how to both re-direct and re-combine theory and practice on careers to
better accommodate the changing world. The speaker will emphasize the importance of this question, and of
related conversations around it, to the future success of the field.
12.00pm
Keynote 2: Ronald Barnett
Palmer 109
Being a Graduate in the Twenty-first Century
Just what is it to be a graduate in the twenty-first century? What might we hope for from our students? What
might they want of themselves?
Currently, three mantras of varying weight are in front of us as guides:
a)
b)
c)
‘Employability, employability, employability’ – and with it a sub-mantra of ‘skills, skills, skills’ – and
preferably ‘transferable skills’ at that.
Knowledge, and more knowledge – and sotto voce (for it is fading) a sub-mantra of ‘knowledge for its own
sake’
And new murmurings as to the ‘therapeutic’ role of higher education, of a higher education for personal
‘wellbeing’.
These three mantras jostle against each other, competing for audiences. There are two points to be made. Firstly,
each has its place; none is without some merit. But secondly, more importantly, even taken together, these
mantras are deficient.
The world is not just changing but is replete with contested and even incommensurable
viewpoints. In such a world, talk of employability, knowledge, skills (no matter how ‘transferable’) and wellbeing
is insufficient. In addition to all of these, we need to have a sense as to the nature of human being in the
contemporary world. For that we need a vocabulary of human ‘dispositions’ and ‘qualities’, disposition and
qualities that will bring forward human being adequate to radical uncertainty and challenge.
Seen in this way, a ‘career’ is but the continuous working out of human possibilities for flourishing in such an
uncertain and challenging world.
2.00pm
Parallel Session
Mark Savickas
Carrington 101
Life Design
To respond to changes in the social organization of work, some advisors and counselors have turned to narrative
methods because that emphasizes life design rather than occupational choice. Looking at lives as novels being
written focuses attention on the themes that activate and characterize individuals both at work and in
relationships. From this narrative perspective, vocational interests are solutions to problems that people have
experienced and work is an opportunity to actively master what has been passively suffered. This narrative
approach to career education and counseling enables clients to fit work into their lives, rather than fit themselves
to jobs. This presentation will discuss and demonstrate practical techniques for using stories and articulating life
themes to foster educational and career decision making. Participants may even use the techniques to better
understand why they became advisors and counselors and how their own occupations allow them to advance their
own life stories.
2.00pm
Parallel Session
John Arnold and Laurie Cohen
Carrington 201
“It really made me think about my own future”: The potential benefits of an academically-orientated
undergraduate careers module
We will briefly introduce a final year undergraduate module called “Analysing Careers” that we have developed
and taught together for several years at Loughborough University Business School. We will also make brief
reference to a somewhat similar MBA module. We will outline some of the things we have learned along the way
about how to design and run a module of this kind, and how we think the students can benefit. Most of all, we
would like to share experiences and observations about bringing careers into the curriculum (especially the
undergraduate one) as a substantive topic, rather than as a “transferable skills” add-on.
2.00pm
Parallel Session
Zella King
Palmer 103
Teaching career self-management: what can we expect of ourselves and our students?
The objective of this workshop is to stimulate a discussion around the teaching of career self-management in
higher education. In particular, it will focus on two questions:


Is there any scope for teaching positioning and influencing strategies in the HE curriculum?
If so, how can they be taught?
The first half of the workshop will be a talk covering some personal reflections on these questions covering the
following



Perspectives on career self-management in the HE curriculum
An outline of how, since returning to ‘regular’ academic teaching in 2007 I have attempted to develop the
ability of students on a third year undergraduate module in Human Resource Management (HRM) to
manage their own careers.
Some reflections on the extent to which it is possible to develop career self-managing behaviours with the
curriculum constraints of a HRM module, and on alternative approaches that could be adopted
I will then encourage participants to contribute to an open discussion about



What ‘career management skills’ are needed by today’s graduates
Whether and how these can be developed within the HE curriculum
Ways of helping students identify and address their own learning needs in this area
2.00pm
Parallel Session
Julia Horn and Catherine Reynolds
Palmer 105
Beyond the PhD http://www.beyondthephd.co.uk is a web resource specifically designed for UK arts and
humanities postgraduate research students. At the outset, ‘Career Studies’ ideas were built into the design of
Beyond the PhD, notably that the site would not be prescriptive; that it would feature multiple points of view and
potentially conflicting ideas about careers; and that users would need to develop their own conclusions about the
material they encountered.
This session will showcase Beyond the PhD, the approach it takes, and the way it can be used as a resource for
workshops and courses. The presenters will give an overview of the site. We will then initiate a group discussion
around a career theme taken from the site. The discussion will draw on audio clips from the site and will
demonstrate the way that Beyond the PhD can be used for both individual and group career learning.
3.30pm
Keynote 3
Kerr Inkson
Palmer 109
The New Career Studies: Metaphor in Theory and Teaching
In this address I use my own career as a means of illustrating various metaphors for career, e.g. as an inheritance
from my parents, in the practice of “vocational guidance” based on a “fit” metaphor, as a status-driven journey up
a formal career ladder, and in research on boundaryless careers and careers as improvisational performance, etc.
Career theories derived from psychological, adult development, organizational, sociological and other perspectives
involve adopting different metaphors, and potentially extend and integrate conceptualizations of career. “Career
studies” is a multidisciplinary field in process of formation that combines these to provide holistic accounts of
careers to a range of clients- counsellors, managers and of course career actors. Career studies is a vital element in
education, in all faculties, and the address ends with some thoughts on the development of undergraduate courses
in career studies, particularly using metaphorical frameworks.
23rd September
10.30pm
Keynote 4
Mark Savickas
Palmer 109
Career Studies: The Self and Life Design
Despite the centrality of self constructs in theory and practice, vocational psychologists have paid little attention to
the linguistic explication of the self, relying instead on its operational definition. This habitual inattention to
examining the "self" is a serious oversight because it leaves vocational psychology's view of the self as
fundamentally ambiguous. This does not mean that vocational psychology does not have a self; in fact, vocational
psychology has multiple selves, at least three, with each one relatively distinct and existing in isolation from its
other renderings. To elaborate career theories and advance counseling practice, vocational psychologists need at
least to articulate their three main epistemic models of the self, and maybe someday organize the relationships
among these models of the self into a nomological network.
12.00pm
Parallel session
Svenja Tams, Clare Stott, & Michael B Arthur
Carrington 101
Facilitating Intelligent Career Conversations: Insights from the Bath MBA
This workshop will introduce participants to “intelligent” career theory, and the use of the Intelligent Career Card
Sort (ICCS) in the Bath MBA programme. Svenja Tams will share her experience of integrating career development
within the programme’s core teaching on personal effectiveness and leadership. She will highlight the contribution
of the ICCS to help students integrate the interdisciplinary approach which she adopts in her careers teaching.
Clare Stott, Career Development Manager for the MBA programme, will share insights gathered from students'
coursework. In the second part of this workshop, participants will be invited to consider how they could apply the
ICCS (or its underpinning principles and process) to their existing career development activities. Michael Arthur will
contribute with experience from using the ICCS in his online "Career Strategy" course.
12.00pm
Parallel session
Gill Frigerio
Carrington 201
Student Perspectives on Careers and Employability – a research based Career Management module.
The emergence of Career Studies as an approach to linking students, institutions and curricula with the contested
and cultural notion of career is exciting for practitioners looking for innovative, meaningful and effective ways to
support our students in their career development. Finding practical opportunities to develop it can be another
story….
…One such opportunity came about through the fellowships offered by the Reinvention Centre, a Centre for
Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL, funded by HEFCE in a national programme that also includes CCMS).
The Centre, a collaboration between the University of Warwick and Oxford Brookes University, focuses on
engaging students in research based learning and they offer staff fellowships for curriculum innovation.
The workshop will tell the story so far of a fellowship based around engaging students in research about career and
involving them in research about the value of this approach to students’ career development.
Whilst the project is in its early stages, experiences so far will highlight some of the practical and operational
conundrums to be faced with such innovative work and outline the process we plan to follow in developing an
accredited, research based career studies module.
12.00pm
Parallel session
Maura O’Regan
Palmer 105
Challenging conventional thinking about ‘career’ in the curriculum
The purpose of the workshop is to raise questions about what we are trying to achieve in careers education and to
encourage discussion on the merits and possibilities of career studies within the higher education setting. It has
been argued that there is a gulf between what career researchers theorise about and what career professionals
have to deal with in practice. Now more than ever, with the recent focus on employability in higher education, we
need to encourage debate on the perceived tension between policy, research, and practice with a view towards
using this energy to develop expectations of career education. This interactive session is designed to do just that
by drawing upon three different approaches to understanding the career related behaviour of students/graduates
(Tomlinson, 2007, 2008; O’Regan, 2009) which will give participants the opportunity to discuss their thoughts
about how this type of debate could benefit the ‘career-life’ of individuals in the longer term.
12.00pm
Parallel session
Celia Hunt
Palmer 103
Creative Writing for Personal and Professional Development
At the University of Sussex we have been developing the use of creative writing for personal and professional
development since 1996 and offer both a masters and a doctoral programme in this subject. Creative writing, we
have found, can be a very powerful reflective tool for exploring the assumptions we bring to thinking about our
own writing and learning processes and what it means to be a writer or learner. It can provide an oblique angle on
these assumptions, enabling us to think outside of the usual frameworks. In this workshop I will be talking briefly
about research I have been carrying out into the effects of creative writing as a developmental tool and also
offering participants the opportunity of engaging in a writing exercise around the concept of career.
2.00pm
Parallel session
Kerr Inkson
Carrington 101
Using Career Cases to Teach Career Studies
I have developed an undergraduate course in career studies that makes extensive use of career case studies. These
cases particularly illustrate the multiple perspectives from which any specific career can be considered, thus using
specific cases to develop multidisciplinary-based learning about careers. Analysis by each student of the career of
one of his/her parents is a key method. The approach is encapsulated in the cases used to illustrate my book
Understanding Careers (Sage Publications, 2007), in the commentaries on these cases in the book, and in its endof-chapter exercises. In this workshop I will briefly outline the approach, including gathering, writing up and
analysing cases and using them pedagogically, and will then invite input and discussion from participants. I will
take responsibility for preparing a summary of the session and sending it to all participants.
2.00pm
Parallel session
Phil McCash
Palmer 105
Developing a curriculum for career studies.
This workshop is designed for participants who are interested in teaching career studies in education or the
workplace. It is particularly relevant for people who teach or train on courses and programmes in career/personal
development or employability and who are interested in research-informed teaching. It is designed for those who
may be dissatisfied with traditional approaches but perhaps unsure as to what their next step might be.
I will discuss my experience over the last 10 years in lecturing on modules in career studies within general
undergraduate and professional postgraduate programmes. The challenges and opportunities of teaching ‘career’
will be explored and some practical suggestions for participants to discuss and take away will be presented.
Specifically, I will propose four multidisciplinary threshold concepts in generic career studies related to: career
learning; career development; career management and career typologies. In relation to this, I will propose some
outline workshop plans for use with a range of students. There will also be an opportunity to appraise these
thoughts and to construct alternatives.
2.00pm
Parallel session
Paul Dowson
Carrington 201
Responsible Engagement PDP Programme
This session explains why and how Leeds Metropolitan University is developing a new approach to Personal
Development Planning. The Responsible Engagement PDP programme connects a number of key cognate areas
including employability, skills development, enterprise, ethics, volunteering, internationalisation and global
citizenship through the overarching notion of responsibility. Its four modules over three years move in the
direction of progressive responsibility - from student responsibility to professional and civic responsibility to global
responsibility - and incorporating an accredited volunteering module as the signet Responsible Engagement
student experience. The session will examine how postmodernism necessitates a different approach to PDP and
how the use of narrative has taken on particular significance.
2.00pm
Parallel session
Celia Hunt
Palmer 101
Creative Writing for Personal and Professional Development
At the University of Sussex we have been developing the use of creative writing for personal and professional
development since 1996 and offer both a masters and a doctoral programme in this subject. Creative writing, we
have found, can be a very powerful reflective tool for exploring the assumptions we bring to thinking about our
own writing and learning processes and what it means to be a writer or learner. It can provide an oblique angle on
these assumptions, enabling us to think outside of the usual frameworks. In this workshop I will be talking briefly
about research I have been carrying out into the effects of creative writing as a developmental tool and also
offering participants the opportunity of engaging in a writing exercise around the concept of career.
2.00pm
Parallel session
Angus McKendrick & Jo Moyle
Palmer 103
Working with Students: Making Theory Explicit
This workshop will explore the implications of two complementary approaches to working with students: a CCMSfunded research project which encouraged students to engage in theory prior to and during a one-to-one guidance
discussion, and group learning activities in which discussion of career theory and the everyday language of ‘career’
provided the starting point for students to engage with the practical business of shaping their own careers.
As well as sharing our own experiences, in this workshop we hope to generate discussion about how far policy and
practice can and should equip students with an understanding of the complexity and richness of ‘career’ thinking.
3.30pm
Key note 5
Audrey Collin
Palmer 109
Professor Emeritus of Career Studies
This paper celebrates the richness and rigour of the study of career underpinning the practices of career. As it has
advanced, this study has not only had to address thorny and emerging issues, but also to grapple with changing
ways of knowing, and the controversies they bring. Hence it presents many of the same historical, cultural and
epistemological challenges as other disciplines. At the same time, it is drawn upon to speak to the life needs of
students. This presents an opportunity for them to complete the learning cycle of input of knowledge,
discovery/action, and reflection; their direct experience of some of the outcomes of those challenges could give
them insight into similar challenges in their home discipline which they might otherwise struggle to understand.
Practitioners would be completing their own learning cycle by engaging in their own research, while at the same
contributing to knowledge of the changing field.