This article sets out the findings of a systematic review on research into career guidance policy in the Nordic countries between 2008 and 2022. In total 60 papers were reviewed from across the Nordic region. They focused on national career guidance systems, career guidance systems for young people, the adult guidance system and career guidance for migrants. The corpus proved to be methodologically diverse with studies utilizing a wide range of different research strategies, although important differences were found between academic and grey literature. Most of the papers reviewed were atheoretical, with the remaining, mainly academic, literature drawing heavily on critical theory. The thematic analysis identified four major themes in the corpus: the context for career guidance policy; career guidance provision and practice; technologies of governance; and beneficiaries and outcomes of career guidance policies. The findings are discussed in relation to the strengths and weakness of the corpus and used to propose a research programme for the next 15 years.

This article studies the importance of recognition in career guidance counselling for newly arrived migrants. The term “recognition” is used as a sensitising concept, in line with Herbert Blumer’s sociology. The article draws attention to many different meanings of the concept of recognition, such as the recognition of previously established knowledge, skills and experiences; study and career aspirations; norms and values; opportunities for development; and the recognition of particularly difficult and therefore noteworthy life circumstances. The study is based on the analysis of qualitative data, drawn from semi-structured interviews with 14 study and career counsellors, who in their work meet (or have met) newly arrived migrants. The analysis draws attention to the fact that opportunities for development, as well as the recognition of particularly difficult and thus noteworthy life circumstances, are usually acknowledged without more extensive objections, but that the recognition of previously established knowledge, skills and experiences, study and career aspirations as well as norms and values can, according to the interviewees, lead to goal conflicts in study and career counselling work (although the relevance of a recognizing approach is generally emphasised).

The aim of this article is to describe and discuss professionalism and professionalisation of career guidance counselling in Sweden in relation to different logics of professional practice. The transformation of the labour market and the educational system in Sweden over the past decades has led to an increase in the importance of individual educational and occupational choices and development of career management skills in relation to individual trajectories based on personal interests. Also, individual agency has increased in importance in relation to the quantitative planning of secondary and tertiary education aiming to match supply and demand in the labour market. Within the dominant functionalistic technical-instrumental paradigm, which focus on individual agency and rational choices, the importance of career guidance and counselling has increasingly come into focus. Through the incorporation of market-oriented management logics in the welfare sector, the previously dominant logics of professional responsibility have in many professional groups been replaced by professional accountability. In Sweden, the process of professionalising the emerging semi-profession of career guidance and counselling is driven by policymakers. Rather than being defined by practising professionals, professionalism is externally defined in reports and policy documents shaped by elites and experts, outlining core competences in career guidance and counselling related to political objectives. The practice of career guidance and counselling is not strongly governed and there is little external evaluation. The professionals have autonomy and relatively high degrees of freedom in formulating problems and solutions, but little organisational support. 

Syftet med denna artikel är att diskutera professionalism och professionalisering av studie- och yrkesvägledning i Sverige i relation till olika logiker för organisering av professionellt arbete. Arbetsmarknaden och utbildningsystemen i Sverige har genomgått betydande strukturella förändringar under de senaste decennierna, vilka har medfört att betydelsen av individuella studie- och yrkesval samt utvecklingen av karriärkompetens har ökat, i relation till såväl individens livsbanor som matchningen mellan utbud och efterfrågan på arbetsmarknaden. Inom det dominerande funktionalistiska och tekniskt rationella paradigmet betonas betydelsen av individuella val samt studie- och yrkesvägledning. Med införandet av marknadslogik i välfärdssektorn har den tidigare dominerande logiken, vilken var baserad på yrkesprofessionalism och professionellt ansvar, i många professionella grupper ersatts av organisationsprofessionalism och redovisningsskyldighet. I Sverige har studie- och yrkesvägledningens professionalisering i första hand drivits på från den politiska arenan. Professionalismen har utformats av expertis i policydokument, där den professionella kompetensen har definierats utifrån politiska mål. Den centrala styrningen och externa utvärderingen av studie- och yrkesvägledningen är dock begränsad. Studie- och yrkesvägledare har relativt stora frihet att formulera problem och identifiera lösningar i den professionella praktiken, men de har svagt stöd inom organisationen.

Studie- och yrkesvägledning syftar till att stödja människor att göra studie- och yrkesval och att hitta framkomliga vägar inom utbildning och arbetsliv. Vägledningen har en särskilt viktig funktion för inkluderingen av nyanlända i det svenska samhället.

Grundboken Studie- och yrkesvägledning i migrationens tid behandlar utmaningar, möjligheter och överväganden som aktualiseras i mötet mellan vägledare och nyanlända vägledningssökande. Den belyser begrepp och fenomen som är viktiga för förståelse av hur migration kan påverka människors möjligheter inom utbildning och arbetsliv, som inkludering och exkludering, frågor om makt och erkännande samt erfarenhet av flykt och uppbrott. Områden som vägledningssamtal och mångkulturell vägledning introduceras och olika kommunikativa utmaningar som kan uppstå i vägledningssamtal med nyanlända belyses. Boken beskriver även konkreta metoder och strategier som kan användas i ett vägledningssamtals olika faser med exempel från aktuell forskning.

Studie- och yrkesvägledning i migrationens tid vänder sig främst till studerande på studie- och yrkesvägledarutbildningen och verksamma studie- och yrkesvägledare, men även till andra yrkesgrupper som möter nyanlända och har en vägledande funktion i sitt yrke.

I Ungdomars fritidsaktiviteter studeras fritidsaktiviteter och dess betydelse för ungdomar. Vilka är engagerade i fritidsaktiviteter och vilka är det inte? Förstärker aktiviteterna skillnader mellan unga med olika klassbakgrund, etnicitet eller kön, eller kan de bidra till en positiv utveckling för unga från resurssvaga familjer? Forskningen om fritidsaktiviteter är ett växande fält inom pedagogik, psykologi, socialt arbete och sociologi. Boken vänder sig till studenter i dessa ämnen och till lärare, fritidspedagoger, studie- och yrkesvägledare samt övriga som arbetar med ungdomar och ungdomsfrågor – praktiskt och i forskning. 

This chapter offers a systematic review of the literature on educational inequality and school attainments of immigrants’ offspring in Sweden. The review covers research conducted between 1990 and 2015 and critically examines how different research traditions explain this inequality. The chapter begins by mapping the key characteristics of the Swedish educational system together with Swedish immigration patterns. Thereafter, five major research traditions that explain educational inequality and ethnic background in Sweden are presented. These perspectives include (1) political arithmetic; (2) racism and discrimination; (3) language proficiency tradition; (4) school choice and school segregation; and (5) cultural and social capital and socio-historical contexts. The ‘political arithmetic’ tradition, which starts mainly from a positivistic approach and employs large-scale, quantitative research strategies, has focused on the individual and demographic characteristics of pupils. The main assumption of the other research clusters is that there are important contextual circumstances (beyond individual factors) which decisively affect the educational achievements of the descendants of immigrants. While often dominated by qualitative approaches, these types of research do sometimes include quantitatively designed studies. These research traditions take a more critical stance on government policies, which have produced an extremely segregated school system, and show the consequences of a concentration of children of families from vulnerable groups (economically disadvantaged and immigrant groups in marginalized neighborhoods) in schools with limited resources.