D.Blustein, E.McWhirter, J.Perry: An Emancipatory Communitarian: Approach to Vocational and Development Theory, Research and Practice.
My interpretation:
The EC approach might be summarised as follows:
1. It’s not an equal playing field. Some people are disadvantaged by their circumstances and by social structures. Previous approaches have sought to empower the individual by promoting meritocracy, personal advancement and free competition. However, when people have different starting points this just perpetuates injustice. Instead, the EC approach promotes communion, distributive justice, co-operation and a social activist agenda.
2. Its an action orientated moment, founded on 5 core values. It seeks to change oppressive environments as well as help the individual. (It’s a top level as well as a ground level approach). It tries to prevent individual deficit models by examining the social context.
3. It was also concerned with the role of power. It aims to affirm the voices of those who have been made powerless by their circumstances. It does this by emphasising the power they can have as a community and by involving them in interventions and research. I think the latter point is a good one. Instead of treating individuals as research fodder you could ask them what problems they want researched, thereby giving them the control.
(The article made me think of Martin Luther King. He said “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter” and “All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality”).
This approach makes a lot of sense to me. It’s about helping people to overcome disadvantage as well as trying to remove the underlying issues that cause disadvantage. My only reservation was that by focusing so much on long term change it might limit how useful it was for the present. For example, it might be like trying to tackle the long term issues of homelessness, such as providing affordable quality housing, but not doing anything to provide shelter in the meantime. However at the end of the article (p.170) it comments that, ‘those who are interested in promoting social justice will not likely be oriented around prevention, public policy work and social advocacy at all times of their professional lives. This degree of time commitment is seen as unhealthy and not encouraged’. Social activism as an aspect of your professional work, not as main component, therefore seems the best approach to take.
I think this is relevant for career advisors as they frequently operate in a sphere of influence and negotiate with both sides. For example they may work with school pupils but also with colleges, they may work with young people but also the training provider, they may work with those made redundant but also employers etc. I think this places them in a unique position of being able to understand all the different needs and having the potential to feedback ideas, advocate or negotiate, innovate or change. I do believe that with a positive attitude there is always the potential to make a difference and improve things no matter where you work, even if it’s just in small ways. (For example on placement I spoke with an employability adviser who ran a ‘Fit for Work’ week. She set up a display in the office and used NHS pamphlets on health /depression and she tried to encourage healthy eating by setting up taster sessions of unusual fruit. It received a good response and the outcome was that the centre continues to offer free fruit.)
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