Careers and Freedom

Peter J. Robertson is Professor of Career Guidance at Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland. He is a Fellow of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling (NICEC), a learned society. He teaches career theory and policy to trainee guidance practitioners. His research interests include the relationship between career and well-being, and employment support for disadvantaged groups.    Peter J. Robertson was lead editor of the Oxford Handbook of Career Development (2020) and an editor of the Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling (2016-2024). He has written numerous academic journal articles on career guidance and career development.

"Professor Peter J Robertson is one of the leading figures in the UK’s career development scene and internationally renowned. He wrote this volume whilst leading the Career Development Institute as its President and then taking over as Chair for the National Institute of Careers Education and Guidance. Such roles demonstrate both his pre-eminence in the field and his commitment to building dialogue between policy, practice, theory and research. A task that he continues to great effect in the current volume. Careers and Freedom builds on Pete’s longstanding interest in the work of the economist and theorist Amartya Sen, drawing on Sen’s work on capability theory and applying it to careers. The book is however much more than a translation of Sen’s work into the field of career studies. Rather is offers us an original and exciting perspective on careers and career guidance, which should be integrated into the theoretical canon of the field. In the book, Pete guides us through thinking about the nature of freedom (and importantly what he calls unfreedom) and how this relates to career. Careering has long been considered as a battleground between advocates of human agency and possibility and theorists who emphasise structures, oppression and constraints. At its most basic the question is whether we can be whatever we want to be, or whether such opportunities are only open to the privileged few. Such discussions are existential for the field of career development, and Pete manages to offer new light on old debates through his use of capability theory. The book draws together a range of new and existing theories to frame the concept of career development in a highly original way. Existing theories of career have tended to draw substantially on psychology and sociology, but this book broadens this disciplinary basis bringing in philosophical perspectives that have been largely absent in previous work. Pete’s great skill as a writer means that these elevated discussions are carefully grounded in the reality of people’s career enactments and in the practice of career guidance. I hope that you enjoy the book as much as I did. I hope that it inspires you to career, act, write and guide others in pursuit of freedom." Tristram Hooley, Professor of Career Education at the University of Derby and Visiting Professor at the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences and Canterbury Christ Church University

• Chapter 1: IntroductionPART 1: THEORY, JUSTICE AND FREEDOMChapter 2: Career theory and its discontents  Chapter 3: Social justice and freedom: A philosophical perspectiveChapter 4: Freedom, work and careers: An economic perspectiveChapter 5: Unfreedom and careers PART 2: CAPABILITIES, RESOURCES AND CHOICEChapter 6: Introducing the Capability ApproachChapter 7: Resources, constraints and enablersChapter 8: Choice, values and the 'good life'PART 3: SYSTEMS THINKINGChapter 9: Frameworks for systems thinkingChapter 10: Building a model of the person Chapter 11: Extending a model of the person PART 4: INTEGRATION AND APPLICATIONChapter 12: An integrated model for career guidance Chapter 13: Autonomy as an integrative concept for career developmentChapter 14: Career Authority and Freedom Theory: CrAFT: A summaryFurther readingGlossary of career-related terminology