Universities today are situated at the center of an emerging social imperative - considered vital and necessary - to effectively prepare individuals for entry into the job market with the capacities to respond to the fluctuating needs of evolving economies. Brought about by globalization and the Council of the European Union’s call for strengthening "Europe's competitiveness in a global knowledge economy" (2007), these transformations crystallized in France through the law, LRU (2007) detailed in the Plan License (PRL, 2007). This law mandated the following three principal axes: Universities shall prioritize student career guidance and professional development (as well as training and scientific research); criteria to measure and evaluate graduate employability shall be developed; and, at least half of each graduating class must meet the qualifications required for a higher education diploma. In light of these developments, this research is interested in the study of academic orientation, and more precisely questions surrounding the implementation, reception and appropriation of these policies by the full range of University orientation professionals. This research is subsequently concerned with the introduction of "active guidance" at the University level. It is within this space of experimentation and construction that inherent tensions foreground a polarization between what is described as "Educational Work" and "Pedagogical Mystification". This research will thus examine how teacher-researcherengagement unfolds at the center of a paradigm shift to cultivate creative tensions between social utility and professional development.
展开▼
