Representations of decent work and antecedents among experts in vocational guidance and career counselling using two qualitative approaches

Zambelli, Camilla and Marcionetti, Jenny and Rossier, Jérôme (2021) Representations of decent work and antecedents among experts in vocational guidance and career counselling using two qualitative approaches. In: 44th IAEVG INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, 19-21 October 2021, Online.

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Abstract

Decent work (DW) was defined by the ILO in 1999 as a crucial aspect to promote well-being at work. In order to extend the understanding of this concept, which is central in the Psychology of Working Theory (PWT, Duffy et al., 2016), this study aimed to explore vocational guidance and career counselling expert’s representations of DW with two different methods of qualitative analysis: content and textual analyses. Hence, we interviewed seventeen professionals working in Southern Switzerland including apprenticeship commissioners, adult educators, personnel consultants, and career counsellors. They were asked about: a) what components define a job as decent and b) which resources could facilitate access to DW. We proceeded first with a content analysis of these interviews using Atlas.ti software (Vardanega, 2008), second, with a textual analysis using Alceste (Reinert, 1998), a software that analyses the frequency of words occurrence within a text. Content analysis identified two social aspects of DW that are not in the definition given by the PWT, Positive relations at work and Social recognition. Moreover, these interviews suggest that four main resources help people to access DW: Motivation, Interest, Lifelong learning, and Soft skills development. The results of textual analysis made possible to get an overview of differences in the experts’ speeches. It appears that personnel consultants produce a discourse more oriented towards the salary aspect. Apprenticeship commissioners focalize more on the social dimensions of work. Career counsellor definition of DW take more into account the individual subjectivity. Finally, adult educators place importance on lifelong learning, seen as an important resource to help people in managing their own career and in accessing DW. In conclusion, results of our study provided insight into these experts’ representations of DW and of resources that facilitate access to it, also highlighting how these representations are strongly linked to the specific professional category.

Item Type:	Article in conference proceedings or Presentation at a conference (Speech)
Subjects:	Social studies Education
Department/unit:	Dipartimento formazione e apprendimento > Centro competenze innovazione e ricerca sui sistemi educativi
Depositing User:	Camilla Zambelli
Date Deposited:	20 Jan 2022 11:25
Last Modified:	20 Jan 2022 11:26
URI:	http://repository.supsi.ch/id/eprint/13207

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