getting clear about priorities - looking deeper

Careers work can be developed in different directions. We all give high priority to the well-being of individual learners. But it's also possible to see careers work as contributing to social and economic well-being. Then again, we might see careers work as distinctively for employment-related roles. But neither do we forget that education must also help people in all their life roles - as worker, family member, neighbour and citizen.

Getting clear about things like this is to think about policy. Policy describes the purposes to which the work should be put. It enables us to map a direction for valuable development.

Policy is, then, one of the ways in which we can answer the question 'why is careers work such a good idea?'.

basis for policy

Westminster government says that careers work is a good idea; and that it should have certain priorities. Those priorities are not only for individual well-being, they are also for social and national well-being.

It is essential that you know how to relate government priorities to the situation in your school or college - and its neighbourhood. Few people have mapped government career -related policies with greater care than Ruth Levitas (1998). She gets her material from politicians and policy think-tanks. She is particularly interested in what that thinking suggests for people who have been excluded from the labour market. This is, of course, also a major concern for careers work. What she finds has been used to understand the politics of Connexions (Watts, 2001); and it also has important ideas for education-for-citizenship.

There are, she says, three overlapping ways of understanding policy. Each concentrates attention on a different aspect of 'exclusion'. There three sorts of claim.

1. Being out-of-work usually means being poor. Redistributing income and other resources would then give 'the excluded' a chance to reclaim their stake as citizens and to get themselves re-established as workers.
2. 'The excluded' become members of a moral underclass - out-of-touch with mainstream values. In this view loss of work-disciplines sets off a downward spiral, causing people to exclude themselves and to become harmful to society-as-a-whole.
3. Being employed is the way in which most of us feel that we belong to society; employment is, then, important for social integration, Employability is, therefore, a route out of 'exclusion', and both economically and socially desirable.

Ruth Levitas uses acronyms to refer to these three lines of thought.

1. 'RED - the redistributionist discourse';
2. 'MUD - the moral-underclass discourse'';
3. 'SID - the social-integrationist discourse.

All of these ideas are important for careers work. They provide the value-for-money terms which justify government investment in careers work. Policy therefore needs accountability for delivery in terms like these. And 'RED', 'SID' and 'MUD' point to the resulting targets. For example...

1. 'RED' is successful if more of your working-class students get into university;
2. 'MUD' is successful if fewer of your students cop-out into antisocial behaviour - like crime and lone parenthood;
3. 'SID' is successful if more of your students get jobs, and fewer find themselves unemployed.

Big priorities here. But, before we all get over-excited, we should take another look.

getting to grips with policy

Ruth Levitas has her doubts. She points out that each set of ideas maps 'the excluded' in a different way: 'RED', 'SID' and 'MUD' conjure pictures of different groups of people. Not everybody who needs 'RED' also needs 'MUD'; and 'SID' might benefit either of these groups, but it might benefit other people too.

But there is more to say about all of this. The three discourses stumble from one headline-phrase to another. The terms are never far from considerations of 'tax', 'immorality' and 'social decay''- all big attention-grabbers. Headlines grab attention because they remind people of their own interests - of what they fear and what they want to protect. And, so, the policy ideas are assembled around interest groups; in political terms they are 'constituencies'. You see the point: the way 'the excluded' are described varies with whose interests are being taken into consideration. It is usually possible to argue that any one line of thought will help 'the excluded' (whoever they are); but'- whether it is declared or not - they will usually help somebody else as well.

Thinking in constituency-defined terms leads to category errors: the facts, their causes and their effects get muddled, to the point where its hard to know what we are talking about. You might already have noticed that in 'RED', 'SID' and 'MUD'. They are not each a different reality on a single list of comparable realities, they each belong to a different list (or category). 'RED' is a comprehensive policy response; 'MUD' is an explanation of what sometimes goes wrong; 'SID' is a limited focus for directing resources. They propose different answers because they ask different questions; and they ask different questions because they serve different interests. Proposals are accepted, not for the facts or the fairness, but because they say what people want to hear. The result, as Ruth Levitas carefully reports, is confusion - sometimes ill-informed confusion.

It won't do for education. We need to make usable sense of ideas. It calls for a much stronger grip on the facts, their causes and their effects. It is possible to combine 'RED', 'SID' and 'MUD' into a coherent account of what needs to be done. The story would run like this: 'We can't afford to have a subculture threatening our social and economic well-being' ('MUD'), '...so we must get people back into work by enabling them to become more employable' ('SID'), '...and an essential part of doing that is to redistribute available resources from those who are more-or-less okay to those who most need help ('RED'). It is coherent because it finds a focus among the facts, looks for an explanation, and uses the explanation as a basis for a response.

You may recognise it is a description of Connexions.

policies and constituencies

The trouble is that, in order to make it work, we will have to change the terms in which we speak of 'RED', 'SID' and 'MUD'. They have to be reshaped, so that they are less about constituency interests and more about the facts, their explanations and useful responses.

And that, of course, is where constituency interests reassert themselves: Connexions is supported and opposed, at least in part, on that basis. The big questions have been about whose interests it most serves, of whose view it takes most account, and who gets the lion's share of its resources. Sometimes the 'who' in these questions refers to learners and their families. Sometimes it refers to careers-work providers - in education, social work and IAG work.

Ruth Levitas looks more widely for the powerful constituency interests. She is aware of different groups favouring different lines. She declares her interest in 'RED'. But she points to the dominance of 'MUD' and 'SID'; because they promise both economic success and social cohesion; they therefore serve the interests of personal wealth and corporate growth.

Ruth Levitas also points out how the political dominance of these interests have been paralleled, for a time, by a decline in the activities of civil society. Civil society pursues goals which are other than government and commerce. Ruth Levitas mentions trades unions and churches. But civil society is also represented by the professions - not the least of which the education professions. Though weakened over recent decades, these groups understand that-not all work motivation is economic, that not all work is paid employment, and that not all unemployment is morally corrupt. They have other focuses.

reshaping political priorities

Before careers work was dominated by discourses on delivery and accountability we sought a basis for action in explanation and understanding. It is another way of answering the question 'why is this a good idea?'. But it does not reply along the lines 'it is a good idea because (you hope) it will give you what you want', it says, 'it is a good idea because these kinds of causes will (probably) get these kinds of effects'.

Reshaping 'RED', 'SID' and 'MUD', therefore means asking...

• what is going on here? - getting a focus;
• how does it get like this? - looking for an explanation of what goes well and what goes badly;
• what can help? - coming up with a policy responses.

Ruth Levitas provides some of the raw material needed for that work. She is forced, at times ,to point out that the evidence does not support either policy explanations or responses.

So, what would 'RED', 'SID' and 'MUD' look like, if they were restated in such terms?. Would they prove of any more use to careers work?

'Redistributive' fairness is a basic concern for careers work. Most careers workers would agree with Ruth Levitas that without a commitment to equal-opportunity nothing else can work.

what is going on? The focus is on the rights of individual to fair treatment, rights which should be pay attention to all aspect of everyone's life - as workers, family members and citizens.

how does it get like this? The explanation takes account of the way in which poverty is both a cause and an effect of exclusion. That explanation extends not just to what happens in employment but to what happens in all life roles.

what can help? The response is to use some part of national wealth to help those people. It would mean redistributing income and other forms resources - to help people who most need help, when they need it.

In big-picture terms such a policy could mean managing the demand for labour - for example by supporting economic investment - so that more people have a chance of a job. It would also mean redistributing income. Contemporary politics offers limited support for such high-tax demand management.

In careers-work terms it would mean understanding that 'poverty' means not having enough to go on. Not having enough to go on has both economic and social meanings. This line of thought therefore calls for redistributing all kinds of resources in favour of people for whom things are going badly. It would be a use of education to help people to claim their membership of society and their chances of improving their lot.

This is how careers work got started. It is also how many of its most innovative programmes came into being. All were offered first to people who most needed its help.

'Social integration' offers careers work the possibility of a well-defined consolidation of its position. The advantage is a clear focus and a manageable cost.

what is going on? The focus is on the employee role in the economy. It puts aside consideration of other life roles.

how does it get like this? The explanation of what goes well and badly is found in economic competitiveness. That is what expands the labour market and offers more work.

what can help? The response is to enable employability through work-related skills and to improve the efficiency of the labour market. This will lead to greater prosperity for all, especially for those who are most skilled.

Contemporary politics favour such supply-side solutions. They take some pressure of commercial and government systems, by requiring individuals 'selling' their labour to accept responsibility for what can happen. In big-picture terms this means that, where there is any redistribution, it will be conditional on beneficiaries becoming more competitive. The policy has little to say on behalf of people the market cannot, or will not, take on. Neither does it have much to say on behalf of people who cannot, or will not, take what is offered. It entirely disregards other life roles such as citizen, partner and neighbour - although these roles do offer people a stake in society.

In careers-work terms thins line of thinking means enabling people to identify and develop the skills that make them employable, and ready to manage their move into the labour market. This focus gives a well-defined and easily-recognisable basis for establishing careers work as a worthwhile activity.

'Moral underclass' is a way of talking about cultures - group beliefs and values. Such group-based assumptions influence people's life chances. And the depth and breadth of such dynamics suggest a different way of developing careers work. It would require more resources, needing integration with other parts of curriculum. But, in order to be credible to careers workers, this line of policy thinking will need radically reshaping.

what is going on? The focus is on a minority culture of dependency, crime and parasitism. This culture draws people into socially harmful patterns of work, family and neighbourhood life.

how does it get like this? The explanation is that the benefit system - and other provision in 'the nanny state' - sap initiative, so that the people become morally corrupted. The process grows a culture which perpetuates that decline - exclusion then becomes a generation-ongeneration decline.

what can help? The response is that, if the spiral is to be broken, then rising generations must be helped, cajoled and coerced into behaving in a socially responsible way.

But there is a far-reaching need for reshaping the 'MUD' line of thought. In the first place, the idea of coerced responsibility is a contradiction in terms; and it raises serious questions about what long-term effects such a strategy could possibly have. Indeed it might do harm. There are other problems: for example there is little evidence to support the moral-lack diagnosis, as a general explanation of exclusion.

However, despite this, there is something important here. It is a focus on the importance of culture in understanding career. Upbringing does have effects - but both entrapping and liberating ones. And it does shape behaviour - but at all levels of society. And, the entrapping effects of those processes do not exclusive affect the 'underclass". Indeed, all kinds of people are shaped by their upbringing - both happily and unhappily. And they are shaped in all kinds of roles - in work, in family, in the neighbourhood and as a citizen.

educational responses

In order to be usable for educational purposes 'RED', 'SID' and 'MUD' need significant reshaping.

• 'RED' is basic. The need for redistribution must mean reallocating learning resources (as well as income). Education resources reallocated towards the most needy serve a basic commitment to equal opportunity.
• 'SID' needs consolidation. The need for social integration is tightly focussed on employability and entry into the labour economy. It supports the consolidation of resources and process into a well-defined careers-work timetable.
• MUD' needs integration. The idea of moral underclass is unsustainable; but the underlying idea of culturally-rooted career is useful. It suggests an integration of careers work with the resources of curriculum and a realistic acknowledgment of the links between working roles and other life roles.

The rationales for development - basic, consolidated and integrated - are developed in Game for Careers #2 . (An earlier version of the questionnaire - describing, in order, 'humanist', 'vocational' and 'liberal' directions - first appeared some years ago - Law, 1996.)

There is some policy support for all three positions. In relation to Connexions that support is stronger for equal opportunities and integration. In relation to careers education and guidance there is policy support for enabling employability. Broader and more integrated developments are also supported, however, by education for citizenship and - most recently - by the emergence of the DfES's Children's Directorate (which will contain the Connexions unit).

This latest expression of broadly-based concerns for the child has been provoked, in part, by the Victoria Climbié tragedy. How much it can be reconciled with government support for a subject-based curriculum - driven by targets and overloaded with accountability procedures - is an unresolved issue. If they are ever to be resolved, much of the impetus will come from ‘bottom-up’ initiatives - from work in schools, colleges and their neighbourhood partners. Many such initiatives from ground-level careers work have already been incorporated into policy.

While we gather ourselves for that development, policy has its own ways of enlisting professional cooperation. It is useful to policy to embed its preferred vocabulary in the way in which professionals talk about their work. Current policy preoccupations with 'delivery' and 'accountability' on the part of practitioners are, then, accompanied by talk of 'employability' and 'skill deficits' on the part of learners. This is all strong support for a 'SID'-led consolidation of careers work.

If that political process is successful, the new words, and the lines of thought they signpost, will become conventional wisdom. It will feel as though 'everybody knows' that the biggest priority for careers work is employability, and that chief among its targets are work-related skills. Managers in schools and colleges and Connexions programmes can be insistent about such beliefs. In these ways policy is institutionalised - part of the system, and not lightly to be opposed.

A resulting state-of-mind has been called 'high system orientation' (Law, 2003). It is a self-consistent legitimation of the beliefs, values and priorities set by the organisation. The highly system-oriented are, therefore, loyal to the conventional line of thinking.

But the same study indicates that 'low system-orientation' is also a possibility. Indeed it suggests that higher levels of professionalism are accompanied by lower levels of system-orientation. Low system-orientation represents independence of mind on the part of professionals. It is necessary to any 'bottom-up' support for'- as yet - only emerging new possibilities.

which way now?

Thinking in these terms opens doors to important priorities for the future of careers work:

• we can continue to work with out basic commitment to equal opportunities;
• we can consolidation this work into a clear commitment to enabling employability;
• we can also integrate the work with other work on enabling broadly based life-role relevance.

It may, however, not be possible to do everything. When the priorities are examined in detail, consolidation means strengthening one kind of link to the institution, and integration means strengthening another to the community.

Furthermore, the fact that central policy highlights certain priorities does not necessarily mean that these are the priorities for your work - in its community and drawing upon the resources of your school or college.

There is theory, there is policy and there is locality. Locality is your authority and where you must exercise your own independence of mind.

references

Bill Law (1996). 'Zen and the art of careers education and guidance' NICEC Bulletin 46.

Bill Law (2003). Helping Personal Advisers Working with Systems. The Career-learning Network. Free download available from www.hihohiho.com.

Ruth Levitas (1998). The Inclusive Society - Social Exclusion and New Labour. Basingstoke; Palgrave-Macmillan.

A G Watts (2001) "Careers guidance and social exclusion - a cautionary tale'. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 29 (2).

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