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This article explores policy arguments for the re-actualization of work experience placement (WEP) as a career education and guidance (CEG) activity in Sweden and Denmark through analysis of problematizations and assumptions that underpin its re-actualization as a CEG activity in the two countries. The exploration focuses on core policy documents that widened the right to WEP in Denmark in 2017/18 and reintroduced mandatory WEP in Sweden in 2018. The results show that WEP was actualized by a problematization of the decline in applications for upper secondary vocational education (VET) and accompanying concerns regarding the supply of competences needed by the labour market. The decline was assumed to be due to young people’s lack of interest in VET. This, in turn, was attributed to their lack of knowledge and contact with the world of work and insufficient preparation in compulsory schools to enable them to make informed educational and vocational choices. The ability of the policies that address WEP to reach the goal of increasing young people’s interest in VET is questioned and social justice concerns are raised. It is argued that isolated WEP events do not necessarily increase young people’s interest in, or knowledge of, VET. Instead, WEP must be embedded in a systematic and coherent CEG program that can support expansion of the space of valued occupational options.

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyse work experience placements in lower secondary education in Nordic countries. The article focuses on how and to what extent work experience placements in career education is formalised across the Nordic countries. It identifies similarities and differences among the countries and will provide a comparison of the key characteristics relating to work experience placement in lower secondary education in Nordic countries. The analysis is based on policy documents, curriculum and research concerning work experience placements in lower secondary schools in the respective countries. The comparison reveals that while there are some similarities there are also significant differences among the countries regarding the national guidelines, curriculum and general aim of the work experience placement in lower secondary education. The results show that further studies are needed to acquire more knowledge relating to work experience placements in Nordic countries.

This article examines national policy and guidelines regarding career education and guidance in Swedish compulsory education. We present and examine research in Swedish contexts related to career education and guidance in compulsory education, particularly research conducted after implementation of a major school reform in 2011. We also discuss policy and guidelines in relation to current research and implications for social justice. We draw several conclusions. First, career education and guidance is supposed to be the whole school’s responsibility, involving all the principals and teachers, as well as specifically trained and recruited career guidance counsellors. However, national guidelines provide very general recommendations, with few instructions and little information regarding what career education should include and how it should be implemented. Moreover, it is largely provided by career guidance counsellors on an individual basis. Thus, their strong autonomy could reduce social justice by exacerbating inequalities between regions or schools, or enhance it by compensating for local inequalities (for example, in the diversity of educational institutions and workplaces cooperating in career education activities). Possible strategies to at least partially address identified deficiencies are discussed.