An expanded model of careers professional identity: time for change?

ABSTRACT

The careers profession is challenged significantly by government, employers and potential consumers to articulate its added value to society. Neoliberal discourses such as privatisation, deregulation, flexicurity and a self-help culture are impacting upon arrangements for the design and delivery of all-age careers provision across the UK. In this article, a UK-wide alliance designed to reconceptualise professional formation and identity is examined and critiqued. Findings from experiences in England illuminate the necessity for credible and authentic professional reconstruction. This is challenging work, where boundary maintenance is contested and disconnect with employer networks is prevalent. The article concludes that there is a need for strong leadership and more collective efforts to harness and secure careers professionals’ identity and impact.     

The Public Policy Pedagogy of Corporate and Alternative News Media

This paper argues for seeing in-depth news coverage of political, social, and economic issues as “public policy pedagogy.” To develop my argument, I draw on Nancy Fraser’s democratic theory, which attends to social differences and does not assume that unity is a starting point or an end goal of public dialogue. Alongside the formation of “subaltern counterpublics” (Fraser), alternative media outlets sometimes develop. There, members of alternative publics debate their interests and strategize about how to be heard in wider, mass-mediated public arenas. I address the normative implications of this non-unitary, multiple-publics model for news journalism, analyzing how current conventions in mainstream news journalism (e.g., “balance” defined as “airing two extremes”) can restrict public debate and impoverish the public policy pedagogy on offer. I illustrate my arguments with a case study of media coverage of the creation and implementation of a social justice curriculum in British Columbia, Canada.     

A Psychobiographical Analysis of Faith, Hope, and Despair in Suicide

This paper presents a psychobiographical analysis of a young woman who committed suicide over 50 years ago. Among the documents analyzed are her letters, a high-school diary, creative writing, college newspaper book reviews, and academic papers. Using both an Eriksonian and object-relational theoretical framework, the roles of faith, hope, and despair in suicide—and the ways in which these were represented in the young woman's self-system—are analyzed. Although she possessed strong elements of both faith and hope, along with a will to implement them in a purposeful manner, she was prone to the defense mechanisms of splitting, devaluation, and dissociation, which led to an inability to create an abiding sense of self that may have prevented her descent to despair. Among other issues discussed in the article are the usefulness of psychobiography as a method of studying suicide and both the benefits and limitations of spiritual faith in countering depression and suicide.     

An exploration of values in ethical consumer decision making

Consumer concern for ethical issues has been well documented across much of the developed world. Research on values is also prominent in the literature. Neglected in consumer behaviour is an understanding of the pertinence of particular values in ethical decision making contexts. This paper outlines the results of qualitative research, which explores those values pertinent to ethical consumers in decision making and the nature of their influence in grocery consumption contexts. A questionnaire was used to ascertain the dominance and nature of values influencing consumer decision making in this context.     

Constructing the “Good Mother”: The Experience of Mothering Ideologies by Work Status

The purpose of this study was to explore how mothers construct their worker–parent identity within a cultural context of competing mothering ideologies. We used narrative data from interviews with 95 married mothers with at least 1 child under the age of 5 to compare the construction of intensive mothering expectations by middle-class full-time employed mothers, part-time employed mothers, and at-home mothers. Although previous research has shown that mothers alter work status to live up to intensive mothering expectations, our results show that mothers also alter their construction of intensive mothering expectations to reconcile these demands with their work status choices. The results also suggest that mothers with different employment decisions differ in their construction of Y. Elvin-Nowak and H. Thomsson's (2001) 3 discursive positions—accessibility, happy mother/happy child, and separation of work and home.     

Madness and Disability in Contemporary Chinese Film

This article draws on recent research in the medical humanities to analyze two contemporary Chinese films: Zhang Yuan's Sons (1996) and Zhou Xiaowen's The Common People (1998). By portraying psychic and physical anguish in ways that refuse to divorce biology from culture, such films offer rare moral dialogues on biomedical issues and contribute a cross-cultural perspective invaluable to the task of responding to illness and suffering.     

Enhancing social relationships through positive psychology activities: a randomised controlled trial

Despite the robust relationship between well-being and social relationships, the latter has received little examination within positive psychology activities (PPAs). This study aimed to test whether kindness- and gratitude-based PPAs, through positive social interaction with peers, enhanced relationship satisfaction. Using a longitudinal randomised controlled design, 225 participants were assigned to one of three conditions (relationship-focused, self-focused or control) and completed measures of relationship satisfaction, social support and happiness on three occasions (baseline, post-intervention and six weeks). The experimental PPAs were relationship-focused (involving social interaction) or self-focused (no social interaction). Those who completed relationship-focused PPAs had greater increases in relationship satisfaction than the self-focused and active control activities at six-week follow-up. Additionally, only those in the relationship-focused condition felt their existing friendships had improved at intervention cessation. Regardless of participants’ initial levels of social support, the intervention effects remained. In conclusion, PPAs fostering social kindness and gratitude significantly strengthened relationship satisfaction.