Exploring career via the lens of paradox: a longitudinal study of the transitional experiences of a small group of graduates

Gee, R. ORCID: 0000-0002-0783-2614, 2019. Exploring career via the lens of paradox: a longitudinal study of the transitional experiences of a small group of graduates. DSocPrac, Nottingham Trent University.

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Abstract

Career is an activity that occurs in-the-world-with-others, an interdependent social project which inevitably has political, sociological and philosophical dimensions. Such dimensions are rarely acknowledged within the literature, a literature that explores career via a dichotomous logic lacking in criticality. This project observes how the literature uncritically views career as paid work, thus promoting work as a perpetual vortex, pulling, appropriating, colonising and sucking within all that is viewed outside of its parameters of action. This project provides an exploration of 'career' via a broader lens of the life career, a career that encompasses a diverse range of social strands (Goffman, 1961). It is argued that such an analytic lens allows richer, more nuanced and critical readings of career to occur, a challenge to career as work that invariably serves the interests of capital. Via such a lens, the project also asserts how the articulation of social strands in a person’s life evoke moments of paradox, complex articulations that push conception to contemplate conclusions that contradict the entities and nature of its own inquiry. The document argues that paradoxical moments are useful and revealing moments, an analytic that provides numerous and critical readings. The notion of paradox can therefore be a useful analytic for the recursive relationship between research and pedagogy. To demonstrate and illustrate the utility of such methodology the document provides longitudinal accounts of a small yet detailed sample of individuals from the last year of undergraduate study through to up to 3 years post-graduation, concluding that paradox is an ontological aspect of career articulation, where there is articulation there is paradox, an important observation to contribute to the literature, policy and pedagogical practice.

Item Type:	Thesis
Creators:	Gee, R.
Date:	September 2019
Rights:	This work is the intellectual property of the author – Ricky Gee. You may copy up to 5% of this work for private study, or personal, non-commercial research. Any re-use of the information contained within this document should be fully referenced, quoting the author, title, university, degree level and pagination. Queries or requests for any other use, or if a more substantial copy is required, should be directed to the owner(s) of the Intellectual Property Rights.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	04 Nov 2019 14:27
Last Modified:	01 Sep 2021 11:10
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/38103

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