Career Development Series – serie

Career brings together individuals’ paths through life, learning and work. It describes how people interface with social institutions including the education system, employers, civil society and the state. Because our careers are socially and culturally embedded it matters where they are enacted. Career and Career Guidance in the Nordic Countries explores what kind of context the Nordic region offers for the pursuit of career, how the development of careers are supported in welfare societies, and how career guidance is enacted in this context.The Nordic region encompasses an area in Northern Europe and the Northern Atlantic comprising Denmark, Sweden, Norway as well as Finland to the east and Iceland in the Atlantic. It includes also the self-governing areas of Åland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. This region has long been seen as a source of progressive policy innovation in education and employment and this book focuses and explores the place, the enactment and the theories of career guidance in these Nordic countries.

Career brings together individuals’ paths through life, learning and work. It describes how people interface with social institutions including the education system, employers, civil society and the state. Because our careers are socially and culturally embedded it matters where they are enacted. Career and Career Guidance in the Nordic Countries explores what kind of context the Nordic region offers for the pursuit of career, how the development of careers are supported in welfare societies, and how career guidance is enacted in this context.The Nordic region encompasses an area in Northern Europe and the Northern Atlantic comprising Denmark, Sweden, Norway as well as Finland to the east and Iceland in the Atlantic. It includes also the self-governing areas of Åland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. This region has long been seen as a source of progressive policy innovation in education and employment and this book focuses and explores the place, the enactment and the theories of career guidance in these Nordic countries.

This fourth edition of the book represents a milestone in the history of the Systems Theory Framework of career development that attests to its continuing influence and contemporary relevance. It emphasises changes in career development theory, practice, and research since its first edition in 1999. At that time, the publication of the STF was described by reviewers as a “groundbreaking departure from traditional counseling texts”, a “landmark work leading to the convergence of career development theories”, and as a “rare book that not only illuminates a field of study but also advances it”. Subsequent commentary attests to the strength of the metatheoretical contribution of the STF and its facilitation of links between theory, research, and practice. This book introduces systems theory and the STF, and comprehensively overviews traditional and contemporary career theory and analyses it through the metatheoretical lens of the STF. It then describes applications of the STF by applying systems thinking, systems mapping and experiential learning. Finally, the contributions and future directions of the STF are highlighted. This book provides a record of almost 30 years of contribution of the STF to career theory, research, and practice.