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This qualitative study focuses on the impact of a supportive 12-week programme intended to empower young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) to pursue life-career goals of their own choosing. The programme is viewed through the conceptual lens of the Capability Approach of Amartya Sen, an approach to social justice that stresses the power to make and implement lifestyle choices. Fourteen young people who attended the Prince's Trust team programme were interviewed. Their accounts of their experience of the programme were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Participants found the programme to be a positive confidence-building experience, and it enabled them to deploy their existing resources in pursuit of a personally meaningful goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK, the concept of employability is influential in current conceptualizations of career development. It is an example of a discourse underpinned by faith in individual transformation as a response to unstable labour markets, a position that is not unproblematic when structural factors are taken into account. This article introduces an alternative perspective, the capability approach, to encourage debate about its value, and to begin to outline what it means for career counselling and development practice. An overview of the capability approach is provided, and the resonance between the concerns of the capability approach and those of career development practitioners will be highlighted. Key difficulties in applying the approach are identified before implications of the capability approach for practice are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amartya Sen's Capability Approach offers great potential as a conceptual framework for promoting social justice and well-being through economic and educational engagement. Yet the capability approach presents researchers with formidable difficulties, not least because it is intentionally left incomplete, and little guidance is available on its application. It is therefore necessary to make choices in order to apply the approach to a specific context. This paper will introduce the issue of social; ustice in a career development context, and methodological challenges in researching capabilities. It will attempt to provide a rationale for methodological choices in four stages. Firstly, the choice of epistemology and ontology ; secondly, choices of level of analysis and disciplinary perspective ; thirdly, the choice of research methods. An example of career development with disadvantaged NEET young people (not in employment, education or training) in the United Kingdom will be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]