Improvisational Career Guidance: An Ethos for Professional Practice (Trotman Studies in Careers, Employability and Transitions)

How do career guidance practitioners exercise professional judgement in contexts shaped by uncertainty, competing demands and constant change?Drawing on sociology, policy implementation research, street-level bureaucracy, and theories of improvisation, Ida Holth Mathiesen challenges conventional understandings of professional practice as the straightforward application of methods or policies.Instead, she demonstrates how career guidance is continuously enacted through professional judgement, relationships, organisational conditions and the realities of everyday work. This book:• Introduces the concepts of contextual, political, and relational balance, showing how practitioners negotiate tensions between local needs, policy demands, and the interests of guidance seekers. • Develops the innovative ideas of Improvisational Career Guidance and Mission Musicality, offering new ways to understand professional discretion, responsiveness and the collective negotiation of career guidance's purp