Social Constructionist View of Career - Transcript

Social Constructionist view of Career - transcript

Slide 1

A Social Constructionist view of Career (Mignot, 2008)

Slide 2

Let’s remind ourselves of what is meant by ‘social constructionism’

Social constructionism acknowledges that social interchange, social relationships, and social context, are significant in terms of how individuals, groups, and communities construct meaning from their world.

As such, social constructionism points to the plurality of meanings that we construct about ourselves and our world. This is not entirely relativist, or context dependent. Social constructionism acknowledges the presence of ‘real’ structures that order our lives and construct our identities – we all have a particular gender, ethnicity, social class, age, etc. and these factors both enable us and constrain us. For example, at any one point in time, there will be Government policy that impacts on us due to our gender, age, etc.

Slide 3

Nevertheless, social constructionism also acknowledges the agency of individuals and their social networks. This brings us back to community….

Slide 4

Social constructionism highlights the fluid and changeable nature of communities – that at a local level, communities come and go, convene and disband dependent on the interests of individuals, the availability of resources, and localised socio-political contexts. Some communities thrive and become embedded in the social structure by virtue of their history and traditions – religious groups and professional associations come to mind here. Some go into slow decline due to a lack of resources, political changes, or simply because the ‘leading light’ moves on. Some configure and then evaporate, to then re-configure at another time and place – youth sub-cultures come to mind here.

Slide 5

This notion of fluid communities is informed by post-structuralist perspectives on the nature of power in the social world. The analogy of the mushroom is often used to highlight the permeable, and unpredictable nature of power – that communities, like mushrooms, can appear overnight in unanticipated places. Mushrooms also have a short life-span due to their structural properties, but in their short life spread spores for new growth. This is analogous to the spread and diversity of contemporary culture and the exponential growth of communities of interest via the Internet. The mushrooming of communities is, as we know, taking place on a global scale.

Slide 6

This describes in part the contemporary context for career development. The literature has commented for some time now on the growth of the ‘knowledge-society’ and ‘knowledge-economy’. As we know, universities now have a corporate interest in ‘knowledge transfer’ and appoint professors in this new discipline.

Slide 7

In the 21st century, career development has gone beyond the ‘portfolio career’. Through access to diverse communities, careers can now ‘mushroom’ in many different ways, places, and times. As such, people with a professional interest in careers need to acknowledge the power of communities, and indeed, construct their own ‘communities of interest’. ‘Who do you know?’ is now a key career development question.

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