Another week, another set of things that have interested me across the week.
Another week, another set of things that have interested me across the week.
- Unfrozen: The fight for the future of the arctic. Finished this book over the course of the week. It provides a compelling look at the geo-politics of the arctic and the intersection of the political economy with the environment. It has very few pieces of good news for people who care about a world in which the planet isn’t burning either through climate change or war, but it is well worth a read. Meanwhile Trump has been doing his best to sell copies of this book as he threatens his own arctic adventure.
- The government has launched a new programme to train educators to better support young people with SEND. This is priced at around £200 million. What frustrates me about this kind of announcement is the lack of scrutiny that the figures get. Is £200 million enough, not enough, at least a good start? My guess it that is worth somewhere between £200-300 a teacher, which is probably enough to buy a days training for most of the workforce. A good start then, but probably not completely transformative. It is however, worth noting how much more this is getting than the tiny amounts that are allocated to training teachers about careers.
- It seems that the gospel of green guidance is spreading, with a new book chapter looking at the relevance of green guidance to the Moroccan guidance system.
- Similarly there is some really interesting new work looking at practitioners engagement with career guidance and social justice in a range of European countries.
- The latest in a very good series of webinars looking at the guidance system in a variety of countries focuses on Austria. Have a look at the recording if you are interested in how things work there.
- Had a very interesting meeting with Jules Benton. Her new book The Careers Development Professional’s Survival Guide is well worth a look.
- I’ve been reading Karen Barad’s posthumanist performativity and trying to make some sense of it. I think that the essence of it is that if we are trying to understand the world (e.g. in social research) we need to recognise the range of material and non-human actors that are involved in shaping that world and especially the relationships that exist between them . A focus on social and psychological factors is insufficient.
