From Vocational Guidance to life Skills: Historical Perspectives on Careers Education

In recent years the teaching profession has taken an increasing interest in careers education and its currently popular variant, social and life skills. Several thousand teachers have now participated in the numerous in-service courses which provide an introduction to the subject paradigm and pedagogy. Such courses are not generally places for reflective critical scrutiny of the curriculum package which is being presented; there is a tendency to dwell on what might be termed the superstructure rather than the substructure of the subject or, in other words, the topics, teaching materials and methods rather than on underlying premises and assumptions.