Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Summary
This paper demonstrates the role of a number of related projects, funded through the Leonardo da
Vinci Programme of the European Communities and involving Partner organisations from the Czech
Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden
and the United Kingdom, in attempting to improve participation in education for under-represented
groups through research and pilot projects on:
• provision of vocational guidance and counselling for women returners
• access issues for people at risk of social exclusion
• key elements of guidance for people at risk of social exclusion
• labour market insertion of young long-term unemployed graduate women
• women’s career development
• an on-line course for guidance para-professionals
• criteria for the correct placement in education of women immigrants
• the role of the social Partners (employers and trade unions) in guidance for low-paid
workers
Brief descriptions of these projects are found in the Appendix to this paper. The target groups include:
• women
• ethnic minorities
• refugees
• people with disabilities
• people in rural areas and outlying housing estates
• homeless people
• low-paid workers and workers with precarious work futures
• guidance para-professionals who need to gain qualifications and intensify their knowledge
I shall briefly describe the projects and focus on the ways in which European collaboration added
value through:
• an appreciation of the differences and commonalities between different European states
• the development of European concepts and a shared ethos concerning people at risk of
marginalisation
• the exchange, transfer and dissemination of ideas and initiatives
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Introduction
When I use the word ‘we’ I am speaking on behalf of the many Partnerships in which I have been
involved, either as a member or as project co-ordinator.
I must confess at the outset that the ultimate aim of our projects is to encourage people into lifelong
learning in general, and not only into higher education. We have focused on vocational guidance as
the key to unlocking the potential that we believe every individual possesses, whatever their personal,
social or health difficulties. What we have explored are the barriers to such self-fulfilment and ways
in which these can be overcome.
Learning in its widest, truest sense can raise self-confidence and provide an enjoyable, interesting
experience and enhance life. It can also be devastating for adults to return to learning, perhaps after an
unfortunate first experience, and then to fail again. The guidance process itself provides ‘learning
experiences to enable clients to acquire knowledge, skills and competencies related to making
personal, educational and career decisions’ (Clark, 1999, p. 10), including the best choice of course
for them. Furthermore, for those who do choose to return to learning, good quality guidance is
extremely important in the negotiation of the maze of learning opportunities currently on offer and
their costs. For people at risk of social exclusion such guidance may be indispensable.
The general format for the project in which I have been involved includes:
• face-to-face Partner meetings in as many of the Partner countries as possible, generally
three per year, for team-building as well as task co-ordination
• visits to each country by the project co-ordinator, for monitoring and evaluation, plus
support, consultation and learning at first hand about the local situation
• team negotiation and agreement on the detailed tasks of the project
• initial fact-finding in each country
• generation of case studies and so on in each country
• joint work on conclusions and recommendations
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differences rather than allowing them to become barriers; and the revelation of differences adds to our
historical, political, cultural and sociological knowledge of the complex area known as Europe.
In practice, in our field, we generally find more commonalities than differences. For example, groups
most at risk of social exclusion are more-or-less the same everywhere (there are exceptions - for
example, Finns see no disadvantage in living in rural areas), and this means that many ideas can be
transferred from one country to another, albeit with modifications to take into account the differences.
Both the differences and the commonalities are useful and interesting to those of us who are academic
researchers; they are also important for engendering European solidarity and a common identity based
on a knowledge and appreciation of our rich diversity as well as our shared history and culture.
The development of European concepts and a shared ethos concerning people at risk of
marginalisation
Through full discussion of concepts we arrive at common working definitions for use in the project
and in this sense we develop European concepts. This involves a certain amount of compromise, a lot
of learning and sometimes a little controversy - but never, so far, conflict. This is avoided in a variety
of ways of which I shall give only three examples.
The first lies in choice of partners. It helps if the co-ordinator knows all the partners beforehand or has
recommendations from a trusted source. Before the project it is the job of the co-ordinator to develop
good personal relations with future partners even if this can be conducted only through email. For
practical reasons, it is preferable for the team to have a single common language and for all members
to have a reasonable degree of competence in that language. The team should be constructed
principally, however, on the basis of what different members can bring to it, and these attributes can
be very different. For example, my current project team, which aims to enhance vocational guidance
for low-paid employees, includes a trade union official, the head of a private enterprise, a human
resource development project manager with a multinational company, employees of a state
employment service, a university guidance officer and a number of academic researchers from
universities and labour market research centres. They represent, on the face of it, rather different
interests.
The second way of avoiding conflict is through building on a common ethos. Whatever the
employment backgrounds of the team members, it is important that they all know from the time of
developing the project proposal whose interests are principally to be served by the project. In the case
of my projects, this means people at risk of social exclusion. Although in our dissemination we might
give different emphases to different targets (for example, when speaking to employers we focus on
the interests of the company, whereas for trade unions we emphasise the interests of their members),
we cannot be two-faced in the partnership. This ethos is reinforced throughout the project through
meetings and other discussions.
The third way is through team-building. The bringing together of people from different backgrounds,
countries and languages is also, in my view, the job of the co-ordinator and one that I take very
seriously. Part of my method includes the simple expedient of us all staying in the same hotel and
taking all our meals together! It is also important that the culture of partner meetings should be
egalitarian, mutually supportive and respective of persons. Every voice must be heard and decisions
as far as possible negotiated.
APPENDIX
Brief descriptions of the projects
The origin of most of these projects lies in the work done by Eurocounsel, a large-scale European
project on vocational guidance for adults.
All of the following projects were funded by the European Commission through what used to be
Directorate 22, now the Directorate for Education and Youth. From 1996 onwards the funding has
been from the Leonardo da Vinci Programme of the European Communities, which focuses on
education, training and vocational guidance. Just one of these projects was funded through the
Socrates programme.
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The Insertion of Young Graduate Women into the Labour Market, 1995
This pilot project was headed by INREP, a French training institute, with Partners in Finland,
Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. The outcomes were a very innovative jobsearch method, a
report (unpublished and only in French) and the insertion of a dozen long-term unemployed women
with ethnic minority backgrounds into good-quality employment.
Access to Vocational Guidance for People at Risk of Social Exclusion, 1996 - 1998
A Survey and Analysis co-ordinated by myself, this had Partners from Finland, Ireland, Italy and the
United Kingdom, with the addition of observers from the Czech Republic for part of the project. This
project was conceived with quite a depth of detail and all Partners did essentially the same research
for each country. We looked at social exclusion and made case studies of guidance services which
were notable for their efforts to enhance access. There was scope for negotiation on methodology and
of necessity on content. For example, there was little on lifelong learning for the Italian Partner to
contribute, and few conventional guidance services in Ireland. This diversity led to a richness. The
outcome was a report, in English (Clayton, 1999a) which was circulated not only in Europe but in
many other countries, including Australia, Canada, Chile, India, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, New
Zealand and the USA, by email and download from a website. There is also an Italian version. Other
articles were published for dissemination purposes (Clayton 1998a, 1998b, 1999b, 1999c). There were
also academic articles which drew on this research (Clayton 2000, Clayton et al. 1999, and Clayton &
McGill 2000).
Bridging the Gap: the role of vocational guidance in women’s career development, 1997 - 1999
This Survey and Analysis was led by University College Cork, with Partners in Germany,
Luxembourg, Spain and the United Kingdom. It reviewed the ways in which women do - or do not -
advance their careers, and included case studies of both individual women and of guidance services
which aimed to help them. It is not yet published but the writer of this paper intends to publish an
academic article on the findings.
Access to Vocational Guidance for People at Risk of Social Exclusion: an on-line module 1998 -
2001
This arose out of the previous project and had Partners from Denmark, Finland, Italy, Scotland and
the Czech Republic, with co-ordination by myself. The Danish Partner, an expert both in guidance
and in curriculum development, drafted the curriculum; the Scottish Partner developed the website;
the Czech Partner generated most of the Czech data; the other Partners edited their contributions to
the original Survey and Analysis. The output was an in-service, on-line module for guidance
practitioners and para-professionals, in Czech, English, Finnish and Italian, piloted in Spring 2000
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(Clayton & Plant 2000, Plant 1999a, 1999b, 1999c, 2000a, 2000b). This is being launched on a
regular basis in all the countries which took part in the project. It is intended that the English-language
version will be delivered globally.
The social Partners and vocational guidance for low-paid workers, 2000 - 2002
This is my latest project, with Partners in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland,
Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The output will be an informational
website (www.gla.ac.uk/wg - currently under construction), which will include the results of pilot
projects in each country, and a variety of articles and news items from the different Partners. All the
material will be translated into English, but material pertaining to, say, Iceland, will generally be only
in Icelandic and English. The amount of cross-translation depends on the budget. The aim for most
Partners is to institute and evaluate vocational guidance for low-paid workers in co-operation with
employers and trade unions; in countries where examples of good practice already exist a limited
number of full evaluations will be carried out, together with a series of descriptive case studies.