Dr Lynne Millward Purvis

Vocational Choices and Decisions across the Developmental Spectrum

Questions involving children and young people include:

How do children and young people make sense of all the educational and vocational choices they face?

What kinds of experiences and influences do they use in making sense of these choices?

How, in particular, does gender affect how children and young people make sense of the world of work?

Can, and if so, do children and young people articulate ‘future’ selves that reflect who they want to be?

How do these future self-projections impact on the choices and decisions they make?

Questions involving adults include:

How might the concept of career articulate an identity in relation to work and organizational life?

What does it mean to be successful in career terms?

What might prompt career change and what does this tell us about the relationship between the personal and the social?

How are careers enacted in group and organizational contexts?