Building a Social Justice Pillar for Youth Career Development

The qualitative study presented aims at gaining an in-depth understanding of: Structural barriers to socially just employment amongst 16–25 years old living in Catalonia (Spain); competences to be developed in order to lower them; how educational centers and specifically their career guidance practices can contribute to build-up such competences. Results obtained identify the economic model, the economic crisis, socioeconomic policies, social stereotypes and discrimination, social inequality, the educational system and inappropriate career development practices as main structural barriers to socially just employment. Communicative, methodological, personal, competences to live together aimed at lowering such barriers are described. Furthermore, strategies that educational centers can carry-out to build the identified competences are presented. When it comes to career guidance within educational centers, results obtained in the study show it is mainly perceived as an individual matching process to access an unjust occupational status quo. However, based on all results obtained, proposals are made to move towards a social justice career development approach aimed at empowering youth to be agents of socially just employment.