Life course replaces life cycle
Established patterns are disappearing where individuals prepared for adulthood, then es-
tablish themselves in occupational careers and families. Marital instability together with the
growing expectation that individuals will return to education throughout their adult lives (i.e.
lifelong learning) has resulted in what Roberts refers to as a destandardization of the life
cycle.
Roberts identifies general policy implications and some specifically for career guidance:
a) Customization
There is a need for continuous, individualized careers information, advice
and guidance. Young people need customized assistance that matches their
particular circumstances and involves a mixtures of strategy and chance.
Overall, guidance practitioners should acknowledge uncertainty, and help
young people work with it:‘....whereas it used to be the minority of young people who made prolonged
transitions and embarked on careers that would create individualised
biographies, these are now the majority situations...... there were always those
at age 20 or older, who had little idea of where they were heading. Thirty years
ago, they might have been described as vocationally immature. Nowadays, the
situation has spread to the majority and what was once labelled immaturity has
become plain realism.’ (1997, p349)b) Normalization:
It is important for practitioners to help clients recognise that this situation is
normal and prevent individuals worrying. Information about options and their
uncertainties should be included in the guidance process and practitioners will
constantly need to update about the changing requirements of employment.Conclusion
Roberts, like other theorists, has been developing ideas in response to changes that have
occurred over the past 30 years. Guidance practitioners have often reacted negatively to
his thinking. His views about the limitations of guidance have been regarded as determin-
istic, negative and even gloomy, denying the autonomy of the individual and their right to
choose. However, many of his ideas have been reflected in policy changes that have been
implemented in the area of careers guidance over the past 20 years. In 1997, he warned
that careers services’ preoccupation with a target driven culture and with action plans was
endangering resources being drawn away from the clients who most needed help to those
who were most adept, as consumers, at working systems to their advantage: `Guidance