Career Development in Secondary Education: a Systematic Review

Abstract

Career Development (CDG) is an essential intervention area in guidance because it provides people, particularly adolescents, with relevant strategies for decision-making based on self-knowledge of their own competencies and knowledge of the academic and labor world. In the current situation of change and transition towards uncertain and changing work models, with an increasing predominance of technologies, it is necessary to guide future generations by taking as a starting point their real needs in the present. Therefore, it is required to have information collection instruments that include the relevant variables. Thus, in this paper a systematic review in specific databases of education and psychology has been carried out, in order to identify significant research on CDG in adolescents from secondary education, high school and vocational training. The searching procedure has provided 38 documents that are thoroughly analyzed. The results show the diversity of approaches, instruments, and dimensions of analysis. We conclude by highlighting the need to design instruments that collect quantitative and qualitative data and that consider not only context variables but also variables related to self-knowledge, labor market knowledge, skills for decision-making, gender, equity and the inclusion of different groups, especially vulnerable people.