Locating Social Justice in Career Education: What Can a Small-Scale Study from New Zealand Tell Us?(Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION In New Zealand, career education is strategically located, actively bridging the gap between compulsory education and the social and economic world (Ministry of Education, 2003). Yet is it possible for career education to prepare students for the vagaries of an uncertain world in a socially just way (Irving & Raja, 1998) without providing a critical understanding of how social, political and economic discourses impact on constructions of career, inform career education, and shape our senses) of identity? This question should be at the heart of the debate concerning the purpose of career education and role of the career educator (Irving, 2005). However, our understanding of career education is clouded by its tendency to be driven pragmatically in response to government policy initiatives focused on economic requirements (Ruff, 2001), and further exacerbated by its lack of theoretical grounding (Harris, 1999).