Career development and guidance programs across cultures: the gap between policies and practices.

The authors summarize the presentations and discussions contributed to the symposium International Perspectives on Career Development by members of Group 5, who considered the topic of the structure and organization of career development programs in different nations. A capsule picture of the national setting, primary goals, components, objectives, and implementation strategies is presented. Papers fell largely into 4 categories: national programs with several components; large, but more specific programs, serving a national population; smaller programs serving diverse populations; and focused programs. One theme emerged strongly from virtually every presentation: There is a gap, often profound, between policy or vision and reality. Although every nation about which participants heard had laudable policies and had made genuine attempts to assist its people with life career development, many individuals do not have access to quality, or even any, services.

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Group 5's focus in the symposium organized by the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance and the National Career Development Association was the structure and organization of career development programs in different nations. The planning committee described the group's focus in this way:

      There are large differences in the way in which career development
      provisions are made available among countries and regions. These
      structures have considerable influence on what the guidance
      practitioners can do and how it has to be done. The impact on the
      efficiency and outcome of certain techniques and methodologies is
      related to these structures and the policies, legislation, or
      other factors that shape such structures. Developing a
      comprehensive view of the structures in which programs of career
      development function may increase international understanding of
      why guidance methodology IS often different across settings and
      nations.

The group's chairperson pointed out that it is difficult to discuss the structure and organization of career guidance programs without saying something about the context in which programs are being developed. With this in mind, participants were asked to provide a capsule picture of the national setting, along with the definition of career guidance being used in each country. They also were asked to describe the primary goals, components, objectives, and implementation strategies. Additional information about context included describing primary populations, a brief history of career guidance in their country, and the theoretical framework used, if any. They were also invited to share information about program funding; involvement of government, business, and industry; and the training available to career service providers.

Questions were raised about programs for specific populations, such as ethnic minorities, girls and women, persons with disabilities, and others. Another important question was on the effectiveness of programs and the methods used to evaluate them. Presenters were asked to describe how programs have changed over time. Because of time limitations and the differences in the stage of career development and guidance across countries, the speakers were not able to address all questions.

The papers presented fell largely into four categories: national programs with several components by country (e.g., Australia and the United States); large, but more specific programs, serving a national population (e.g., United Kingdom and Slovenia); smaller programs serving diverse populations (e.g., Torres Strait Islanders, Colombians, African Americans, and Finns); and focused programs such as career centers in China, lack of career counselor training programs in Japan, and adult programs that address gender issues of women and men in the United States.

Because of the nature of the group's topic, which was to learn about how the wide range of ways that nations are approaching the challenge of helping their citizens prepare for, find, and manage the transitions and decisions necessary in today's global world of work, the members of the group did not invest time in coming to conclusions. They instead attempted to learn about the programs of career development in diverse nations and provided the opportunity for several additional members to provide information about their country's programs. One theme emerged strongly from virtually every presentation: There is a gap, often profound, between policy or vision and reality. Although every nation about which the group heard had laudable policies and had made genuine attempts to assist its people with life career development, many individuals do not have access to quality, or even any, services. We present the papers approximately in the order in which they were delivered during the symposium.

Wendy Patton (2004), from Australia, continued the theme of the differential between the ideal and the real in her paper as she summarized the state of career development policies and realities in Australia, emphasizing recent changes in coordination of efforts, federal support, and credentialing and standards. The discussion included a question about counselor--student caseload, which she said was typically 1 counselor to 1,500 students. She was also asked to describe TAFE (technical and further education). It was noted by some participants that the programs and services provided by these institutions seem to be quite similar to those provided by community colleges in the United States.

Career development work, originally called career guidance, is a term applied across a spectrum of career-related processes, including the provision of information, counseling, curriculum, and program interventions, such as work experiences, and the coordination of events, such as career markets. It is conducted by a large variety of professionals, including teachers, counselors, and career advisers. Recently, career has been related to life-long learning, especially with the creation of a National Careers Task Force responsible for oversight of most policy and practice. A recent development is the Australian Blueprint for Career Development.

In Australia, career education is the responsibility of states and is inconsistent across them. Career education has received little attention in curriculum reforms across the country and, in the postschool context, is considered to be uneven, although a number of tertiary institutions have begun offering career development programs as credit-granting elective units. Targets for the programs have moved from students in secondary schools to people at all ages and career development stages. There has been a dearth of training provisions for career development practitioners.

Regarding the provision of guidance services, the Australian House of Representatives Standing Committee on Vocational Educational training has recommended that career education be a mandatory part of the core curriculum of the compulsory years of schooling, distinct from vocational educational training programs; that all secondary schools have at least one full-time professional career adviser who has appropriate specialist training; and that the professional development needs of career educators be better met through appropriate training and a clear-cut set of standards for delivery of career education in schools. Although the Australian Association of Career Counselors has expressed the need for quality standards of training, an overall lifelong career development strategy has not yet been articulated.

Norman Gysbers (2004), from the United States, summarized in his paper the history of the K-12 comprehensive guidance movement, including the trend that guidance in schools includes vocational and educational guidance with an early emphasis on holistic and developmental programs, such as those developed by the University of Missouri and the University of Minnesota. Recently, counselors are paying more attention to the personal/social needs of their students, as defined in the new standards of the American School Counselors Association. Gysbers described comprehensive guidance and its alignment with academic standards, including a guidance curriculum and individual planning.

After hearing Gysbers's (2004) paper, participants wondered if the curriculum was provided for students of all ages and if counselors were the sole providers of this curriculum. He explained that in an ideal program, students of all ages were to be served by counselors but that many schools used other, often less well-trained, personnel, and in many places, elementary students ages 5-12 had little counseling available except through teachers. The issue of theory versus reality in schools was raised here, an issue reiterated often in the working group, as was the need to work with administrators and school district policies. The initiative for implementing a comprehensive program often comes from an individual counselor in a school or district rather than from administrators or school governing bodies. In responding to another question, Gysbers indicated that keeping personal and career guidance functions separate by having different people provide the different types of guidance has been less effective in meeting students' needs than having well-trained counselors responding to and providing programs that address an integrated set of needs.

Sasa Niklanovic (2004), from Slovenia, gave details about specific issues of guidance in Slovenia's Public Employment Service. Slovenia, a developing country, joined the European Union in 2004, after a 7-year process, and Niklanovic stated that Slovenia was highly developed compared with other new European Union countries. He told the group that the Employment Service of Slovenia, for which he worked, was very strong, providing primarily job placement services. Approximately 5% of staff are psychologists who are trained to provide more intensive counseling, and schools also have counselors. Staff members have surveyed their customers, and the satisfaction rate is about 50%; however, he perceived a problem in that the indicators used to evaluate such programs were all quantitative. He believed that they also needed to use qualitative measures. There is a danger in judging outcomes solely by the number of people placed into jobs or into training for jobs; that perspective eliminates the role of counseling and the needs of individuals. The aim is to keep the guidance principles but be less mechanistic in how services were provided.

Niklanovic was also asked to describe policy duties that are seen as a distraction from career guidance. The answer was that employment service personnel must spend a great deal of time dealing with benefits and eligibility and monitoring the activities of the unemployed as they look for a job.

Niklanovic continued the theme of the policy-practice gap by describing to the group that school counselors have similar jobs to those described by Gysbers, with problems similar to those in the United States in the difference between policy and practice. In addition, policies are still focused on reducing unemployment rather than looking at longer term interests.

Agnes Mieko Watanabe-Muraoka (2004), of Japan, chose to focus on three critical issues in her paper on the three major programs that are needed by Japanese society. She first described four major developments. They were introduction of a career education program for 1st through 12th graders, college education reform, career programs for highly educated women, and career management programs for midcareer workers. Second, she identified four competency areas for these programs, based on the American National Occupational Information Coordinating Committee model: future planning, information management, decision making, and human relations. Her third major point was that there is a need for professional training for career counselors.

Watanabe-Muraoka (2004) expressed concern about the fact that counselor training in Japan has now become a business, with emphasis on adapting the U.S. Career Development Facilitator training model to prepare career advisers (career paraprofessionals). No university has provided a career development training program in graduate schools, as has been done in the United States.

Sunny Hansen (2004; also an author of this article), from the United States, gave a brief history by decades of career development and career guidance over the last 40 years in her discussion on adult career development programs. Consistent with the theme of career development over the life span and building on Gysbers's K-12 Career Profile, she provided examples of career development programs for adults: traditional-age college students and adult learners, individuals in business and industry, human resource personnel, women and multicultural populations, and additional specific and multilevel populations. Her paper provided a selected overview of adult career development programs (note that in the United States, the term career development rather than career guidance is used to discuss programs for adult populations). Such programs began in the 1970s with the advent of the adult development movement.

Hansen (2004) pointed out that the systematic programs in colleges and universities often had a career center as the most visible component. She also noted the trend toward organizing specialized college and university career centers in various academic disciplines, such as liberal arts, medicine, business, technology, agriculture, and other fields. Career centers have also been created to serve specific cultural groups and for persons with disabilities.

Programs for specific adult populations were also cited (e.g., programs for women and specific multicultural populations). Multilevel programs (kindergarten through adult) such as the National Career Development Guidelines and BORN FREE, the recently updated University of Minnesota multimedia training program to expand career options and reduce sex role stereotypes for women and men, were also described. Hansen (2004) also discussed Integrative Life Planning, a holistic model that she developed for the career development of adults. It seems clear that although the United States has created a number of adult education programs, the people--from college students to midlife adults to older adults--who receive the most attention are college students and unemployed adults. The gap between the ideal of life span career development and the reality of career development programs for adults is still wide.

During the discussion, Jeff Garis, of the United States, described a collaborative relationship between Florida State University and the Peoples' Republic of China to help China develop college career centers. He described the deep sense of responsibility felt by Chinese universities to place their more than 9 million graduates annually in jobs and stated that it may well be an impossible task. His team found that career center staff had little formal training in career development, which presented a challenge as they attempted to change from offices of career assignment to true career centers. Florida State is working with its Chinese counterparts in an ongoing training relationship.

Xiaolu Hu, who is now with a university in the United States but was originally from China and had just returned from a visit there, responded to Garis's presentation. She agreed that the universities have a responsibility to place students, as both students and the universities agree, but that placing students is often not possible. The training that students receive is frequently too theoretical to lead to easy placement; this is true even at the graduate level. This situation has led to real problems and a problematic gap between students' expectations and reality. Hu stated that universities are looking at creating learning societies that focus more on the career implications of various courses of study.

She also discussed the problem of forced early retirement, which happens at age 50 for women and 55 for men in China. She believed that retirement at these ages forces people to retire when they are too young and creates societal problems of how to support such a large group of the nonworking population. One response to addressing many of these problems has been the formation of a professional association similar to the National Career Development Association. Although here the gap is between desired policies and the reality of students' lives, it seems again to show a gap between what is wished and what is real.

Heather Jackson (2004) reported on a unique approach to career guidance for workers in the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS), for which she worked. Employees of the NHS in Britain were the target of the program. The NHS is working to develop programs for change and to create its own university. The National Health Service University is responsible to more than 2 million NHS employees. NHS is the largest employer in Europe and the third largest in the world. The government ensures that the health and social care sector reviews its practice in light of social, demographic, environmental, and technological changes. Jackson identified three barriers to learning: individuals' state of readiness, level of self confidence/self-esteem, and motivation. The size and complexity of the NHS make change and modernization a real challenge. She also stated that effective information, advice, guidance, and personal support are required to tackle the barriers to access.

Twinet Parmer (2004), from the United States, presented a paper on career development programs for African Americans that addressed the questions: Has the concept of career development and its many facets adequately addressed the career needs of African Americans based on their work history? Specifically, has career development examined the cultural context, lifestyle, and identity issues from a holistic perspective of African Americans that is consistent with race and class issues across the life span and life context? Her paper diverged from the theme of the gap between policy and practice to suggest that appropriate policies to meet the needs of African Americans might not even exist.

Parmer (2004) stated that discouragement about positive work experiences is common among African Americans; many do not have career dreams, except for hopes of "making it big" in sports or entertainment. Others only dream of a "good job," defined as a blue-collar occupation providing enough money to lead a middle-class life and to have security, requiring hard work but having little educational requirements; however, many African Americans will never work in legitimate jobs. Furthermore, they have the highest unemployment rate in the United States, officially about 10%, although this probably is an underestimate because discouraged workers are often not counted in government statistics.

Parmer (2004) reminded the group that African Americans' history of work is unique. A history of slavery is different from a history of immigration. Emancipation changed the situation of American Blacks from full employment (as slaves) to a group with high rates of unemployment. She suggested that work provides purpose, meaning, and direction to life and criticized the lack of relevance of many career development theories to Blacks and other minorities. She presented her holistic model of culture, identity and lifestyle, life span, and life context as a suggested way to improve career development models to better meet the needs of African Americans.

In Anna Lichtenberg's (2004) presentation on practical steps for developing resources for an indigenous population in Australia, she described the current career development situation for Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders, in particular the barriers they face and their disadvantaged condition in the labor force. For example, they have higher unemployment and lower literacy than the Australian population in general. Lichtenberg then described a project (a program of research and strategic consultation and then resource development) designed to ameliorate these conditions.

Lichtenberg (2004) concluded that the usual Western models for career development seem to be less effective with this population and stated that new, collaborative, and more holistic research approaches may be required to identify appropriate career practices strategies and resources. She also emphasized that new approaches and ways of thinking will be needed if career counselors are to empower young people to live and work in this new era. This presentation provided reinforcement for Parmer's contention that current models do not necessarily meet the needs of African American youth and adults, again pointing up the gap not only between policy and practice but the gap in knowledge about what makes good policy for increasingly diverse populations and cultures.

Heli Piikkila, from Tampere, Finland, delivered a paper, coauthored by Helena Kasurinen and Elise Hanninen (2004), that described projects that promoted the social inclusion of young people in Finland. One of the projects described was aimed at young people who do not complete basic education programs or who do not find "a study place" after graduation. The project was directed by a consortium of stakeholders, including representatives of education, labor, teachers' union, municipalities, and students, among others. Also organized collaboratively by various stakeholders, a second project focused on students in the final stages of compulsory education and those in transition between primary and secondary education. The third project described was a special program in Tampere that again focused on mobilizing assistance for students who might need extra help to navigate their transition from school to work or further education.

Marcela Mesa (2004), from Colombia, described her country's career programs in a presentation on vocational guidance in Columbia. Because only about half of Columbia's students go to high schools, and fewer still to tertiary or collegiate education, good career development is critically important from the standpoint of effective use of resources. Mesa informed the group that international and private schools have elaborate vocational guidance programs; public schools, however, have very few programs. They do have extensive plans and goals based on policies and programs they have learned through the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance.

Mesa (2004) described a growing, "consciousness about the importance of vocational guidance in our [Colombia's] educational context" (p. 4). Between them, two conferences in the last 2 years attracted more than 600 participants, including counselors, teachers, and students from all over Colombia. These conferences focused on vocational guidance and academic counseling in both public and private educational settings. She believed that these landmark meetings were representative of a growing consciousness about the needs for these services but that "the political and social will" is not yet there to make this happen. Mesa concluded with a series of recommendations.

Dennis Engels (2004), from the United States, presented a paper that addressed four ethical issues across cultures that relate to career counseling: (a) the universality of ethics, that is, the concept that diverse professions share beliefs of respect for human beings, privacy, accountability, and honesty; (b) the distinction between ethical and legal principles, making the point that the two types of principles may be in conflict; (c) the relative paucity of articles and literature on ethical issues in career counseling; and (d) the visibility of ethics, "in spirit, motivation, intention, and focus" (p. 7) as empowering counselors to focus on "promoting human worth, dignity, uniqueness, and potential" (p. 7). Points that arose during discussion included the statement that ethics are easy to overlook if they are infused in graduate education rather than being addressed separately and specifically.

References

Engels, D. (2004, June). Ethical issues in career development across cultures. In International perspectives on career development. Symposium conducted at a joint meeting of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance and the National Career Development Association, San Francisco.

Gysbers, N. C. (2004, June). Comprehensive guidance and counseling programs in the United States: A career development profile. In International perspectives on career development. Symposium conducted at a joint meeting of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance and the National Career Development Association, San Francisco.

Hansen, S. S. (2004, June). Adult career development programs: From school career guidance to specific populations to programs for diverse adults. In International perspectives on career development. Symposium conducted at a joint meeting of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance and the National Career Development Association, San Francisco.

Jackson, H. (2004, June). Offering career guidance within the United Kingdom's National Health Service: The challenges facing the UK's National Health Service University. In International perspectives on career development. Symposium conducted at a joint meeting of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance and the National Career Development Association, San Francisco.

Lichtenberg, A. (2004, June). Practical steps and guide for developing and adapting resources for an indigenous audience. In International perspectives on career development. Symposium conducted at a joint meeting of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance and the National Career Development Association, San Francisco.

Mesa, M. (2004, June). Vocational guidance in Colombia: A rising issue in a developing country. In International perspectives on career development. Symposium conducted at a joint meeting of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance and the National Career Development Association, San Francisco.

Niklanovic, S. (2004, June). Main dilemmas of guidance in European public employment services. In International perspectives on career development. Symposium conducted at a joint meeting of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance and the National Career Development Association, San Francisco.

Parmer, T. (2004, June). Career development programs for African Americans: A holistic wellness approach. In International perspectives on career development. Symposium conducted at a joint meeting of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance and the National Career Development Association, San Francisco.

Patton, W. (2004, June). Coming of age? Overview of career guidance policy and practice in Australia. In International perspectives on career development. Symposium conducted at a joint meeting of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance and the National Career Development Association, San Francisco.

Piikkila, H., Kasurinen, H., & Hanninen, E. (2004, June). National projects promoting social inclusion among young people in Finland. In International perspectives on career development. Symposium conducted at a joint meeting of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance and the National Career Development Association, San Francisco.

Watanabe-Muraoka, A. (2004, June). Three major programs needed by the Japanese society: The case of Japan. In International perspectives on career development. Symposium conducted at a joint meeting of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance and the National Career Development Association, San Francisco.

Jane Goodman, Department of Counseling, Oakland University; Sunny Hansen, Counseling and Student Personnel Services, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota. The authors contributed equally in writing this article. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jane Goodman, 715 Wimbleton Drive, Birmingham, MI 48009-7604 (e-mail: [e-mail]).