myfuture: Time for a Holistic Perspective of Career Development in Adolescence: the SELCE Model

28/03/2023

This article was authored by Associate Professor Kimberly Howard (Boston University) and Associate Professor Lea Ferrari (University of Padova). Download their full paper for example activities and guiding questions for implementing a SELCE approach.

Adolescence can be a time of great change. As young people formulate and reformulate their goals for the future, academic and career choices assume increasing importance. Social relationships expand, and emotions can intensify and become more complex.

Young peoples’ academic, career and social choices and experiences are closely intertwined and are reflected in the emerging complexities of adolescence. Integrating social and emotional learning (SEL) into career guidance can help young people feel better prepared to navigate the multi-faceted transitions into post-secondary education or into the world of work. Indeed, a holistic view of SEL and career development in adolescence would guide our understanding of these as interconnected, complementary, and often overlapping skill and knowledge sets.

Combining career learning with social emotional learning

In our efforts to develop an integrated model of Social Emotional Learning and Career Education (SELCE), we compared two sets of developmental standards: the Australian Blueprint for Career Development (Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs, 2010) and the Collaborative for Academic and Social Emotional Learning Framework (CASEL, 2020). (Howard & Ferrari, 2021)

In the Australian Blueprint we find an emphasis on acquiring world of work knowledge and appreciating how work can impact people’s lives. The role of parents, significant adults and social contexts are considered, as they offer growth experiences and influence the career development of the individual.

The CASEL model emphasises the importance of building knowledge of and competencies in emotional understanding and regulation. There is an explicit focus on the two-way connections between self and others, and emotions and behaviours. References to the world of work and career remain in the background of this model.

Competencies common to the CASEL model and the Australian Blueprint model

Despite their different emphases, the models share three sets of overlapping skill areas. These form the core elements of our integrated model.

Self-awareness and self-management
Each person develops a unique set of strengths and areas of growth and experiences a unique set of emotions and feelings. These person-specific skills and experiences impact the choices an individual makes and the behaviours they display.

Social awareness and maintaining positive relationships
People develop the ability to understand how the situations in which they find themselves can influence the thoughts and feelings they experience and the behaviours they demonstrate. Relationships are supported by the ability to value multiple ways of being in the world, including being able to understand and appreciate different ways of thinking, diverse value systems and varying customs.

Building one’s academic and career identity
Decision-making and problem solving involve a series of steps that should be followed deliberately and with care. A well-developed academic and career identity includes a sense of responsibility for self, others, and the surroundings, as well as a consideration of how one can have an impact on the world.

A cognitive developmental perspective to career development

Our proposal for an integrated and holistic SELCE model is informed by cognitive development theory. It recognises that career development is a lifelong process (Super et al., 1996), and that in adolescence, young people develop a complex understanding of career choice and pursuit (Howard & Dinius, 2019; Howard & Walsh, 2011).

The SELCE Model

Our model has two axes.

• Developmental perspective measures increasing cognitive development over time.
• Integration shows the progress of the integration of the Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and Career Education (CE) models.

The model expresses the different educational content and processes that are appropriate at each stage of education and the continuing and changing impact of these on a student’s development of identity. There are five key implications to consider:

1. Developmental perspective

Learning experiences should be tailored to students’ current level of thinking and learning needs. We suggest applying the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL; CAST, 2018) to ensure students not only understand ‘what’ they are learning, but also ‘why’ and ‘how’.

2. Integration of SEL and CE

Educators can integrate SEL and CE in a number of ways. Where SEL and CE curricula are being delivered separately, integration could begin by identifying areas of overlap. Combining curricula will both save time and help students to understand and apply transferrable skills. In settings where only one curriculum (SEL or CE) is implemented, teachers and counsellors can start to identify links with the other domain area, adding more connections over time.

These approaches would ideally lead to the development of one curriculum that combines SEL and CE seamlessly (i.e. SELCE). An integrated approach would help students develop a set of personal and interpersonal competencies that they could draw on in social and academic contexts, and that they could utilise in their future development as learners and workers.

3. Connectedness of learning

By integrating SEL and CE concepts into the same lesson or set of lessons, students can gain an understanding of how to successfully apply the skills they have learned in the classroom in other situations (e.g. social and work settings).

4. Content and process

Equal emphasis should be given to the content of the lesson and the process of applying it. Knowledge gained of self, others and the world of work is of limited value if one does not know how to use it. Integrated SEL and CE lessons can, for example, help students: 

• understand the nature of reciprocal emotional processes and to recognise them in their own lives (e.g. the influence they have on others; the influence others have on them)
• recognise that the ability to understand social emotional interconnectedness can help them anticipate the dynamic interactions that may occur as they balance work and family life into the future.

5. Identity development

Finally, the integration of SEL and CE connects learning activities that are better understood as related aspects of the same trajectory. SEL activities focus on helping students build and strengthen their academic self-concept, while CE activities support the development of a vocational identity. These are, essentially, the same process, with academic development being the foundation of later career development. Presenting academic and vocational development in this way helps students learn to see current school-based learning as the foundation for their future life in the world of work.