Susan Mate

Jiang, Wang, Riggs, Mate & Chapman 1
Executive summary
Australians who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual and more (LGBTQIA+) face tremendous challenges in preparing careers through higher education. However, there is very limited knowledge on how they are being supported to achieve better career outcomes and what unique expectations they hold for university support systems.
While LGBTQIA+ students have emerged as a new equity group in the higher education sector, Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment (2018) has historically excluded these students from the existing officially defined equity groups. However, the estimated number (>60,000) of domestic LGBTQIA+ students are comparable to (e.g., students with disability) or greater in number than (e.g., Indigenous students) some of the traditionally defined equity groups. Evidencing the unique vocational challenges LGBTQIA+ students face in general and in extreme conditions such as during COVID-19, our project has served to advocate for explicit policy attention for this emerging equity group.
Qualitative findings from this research indicated that there was specific need for additional or explicit career guidance for gender and/or sexuality diverse students in Australian universities. Findings also suggested the importance of visible role models in the workplace and the efficacy of providing specific mentoring for students. Other key factors identified were the importance of visible diversity-friendly workplaces and how highlighting these workplaces would be useful for gender and/or sexuality diverse students. Finally, the importance of considering the whole person and intersectionality was highlighted by participants during interviews. Specifically, regarding support during the global COVID-19 pandemic, interview findings highlight the impact of social isolation and housing security on gender and/or sexuality diverse students.
Quantitative findings from this project indicated the importance of supporting gender and/or sexuality diverse students to be their authentic selves, with self-acceptance found as a significant and positive predictor of a number of factors related to participants’ career preparation. Similarly, the role of specific career guidance and support was demonstrated, with perceptions of support acting as a significant and positive predictor of many indicators of participants’ career effectiveness, such as job search self-efficacy, career resilience, and networking self-efficacy.
This project generated new knowledge regarding the effectiveness of existing efforts by Australian universities in supporting LGBTQIA+ students’ career development. In doing so, we identified LGBTQIA+ students’ unique needs and expectations in terms of preparing for and seeking employment after graduation. By considering also the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, this project further identified factors that hamper or strengthen LGBTQIA+ students’ capabilities (e.g., resilience and adaptability) in navigating careers during crises, and uncovered the strengths and weaknesses of existing support initiatives. Altogether, it offered insights into how this group can be better supported to achieve sustainable and positive career outcomes, both in general and during extremely challenging circumstances.

This paper considers the way professionals talk about their capacity for resilience in stories of their careers. The way narratives could be used to construct stories about resilience and other capacities is considered relevant to gaining insight into professional identity. In using the term 'professional identity' we acknowledge that some professionals have a conscious purpose-driven identity and others learn through social interactions about the culture of the workplace and the experiences they have that are valuable in the workplace. The empirical research draws on the narratives professionals at different life and career stages share about their professional development over their careers. The research findings highlight the importance attributed to building resilience, but also the themes associated with building professional identity. Vignettes of the stories told are presented in this paper to highlight ways in which resilience is acquired through building networks an...

This study explored the way women of different age groups experience development and growth in their professional lives and how they made sense of that development and growth. Narrative research methods were used to analyse the dialogue that the women in this study present as significant to their development and growth. Differences and similarities in the ways women of two groups told their stories are analysed based on narrative data and gender literature that provides a basis to understand how women have grown in their careers and work. The findings suggest that women of different life stages emphasise different choices and constraints that relate to the ways they are recognised in their work and each woman in this study was seen to offer a unique story about her experience of development and growth. Behind the dominant narrative of career progression there was a gender-specific counter narrative; that of coming to terms with a male-dominated work culture. This was particularly th...

The purpose of this paper is to advance the concept of narrative approaches to career counselling from a cross-cultural perspective by investigating the case of Vietnam. It offers an account of the sociocultural context of Vietnam as it shifts from its traditional Confucian and communist values to a modern globally integrated market economy. Current approaches to career counselling in Vietnam for students in secondary and tertiary education are outdated and so fail to respond to the challenges that this shift is creating. It is argued that narrative career counselling has the potential to reconcile the tension between the need for flexibility and self-direction in work and career in a society that continues to be heavily influenced by Confucian ethics and collective notions of the self. The paper concludes with a call for future research on the practice of narrative career counselling cross-culturally to test its suitability.

This paper considers the way professionals talk about their capacity for resilience in stories of their careers. The way narratives could be used to construct stories about resilience and other capacities is considered relevant to gaining insight into professional identity. In using the term 'professional identity' we acknowledge that some professionals have a conscious purpose-driven identity and others learn through social interactions about the culture of the workplace and the experiences they have that are valuable in the workplace. The empirical research draws on the narratives professionals at different life and career stages share about their professional development over their careers. The research findings highlight the importance attributed to building resilience, but also the themes associated with building professional identity. Vignettes of the stories told are presented in this paper to highlight ways in which resilience is acquired through building networks an...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to contrast how the relationship between career and leadership development and workplace culture is experienced by women in two different countries and the implications this has for human resource development initiatives. Design/methodology/approach The study used a qualitative narrative research design to understand how the lived experiences of Australian and Vietnamese early- to mid-career female academics is engendered. Findings The study identified a number of key barriers and enablers that affected women’s career and leadership development. For the Australian participants, the main barrier included the competing demands of work and life and male dominated organisational cultures that discriminate against women in covert ways. The main enabler was mentoring and the building of professional networks that provided their careers with direction and support. For the Vietnamese participants, the main barriers were overt and included male-dominated ...

This study considers the career identities of Vietnamese students studying at an offshore (Australian) university in Vietnam. The students had completed the first module of a new career development learning program called Career Passport. As part of the program, students were required to write a narrative on their ‘career story’ to reflect on their experiences and synthesise their learning. The study drew on a social constructionist and narrative psychology approach to explore the major influences on the career identity that emerged from the students’ narratives. The strongest influence on the students’ career identities and career decision-making was family, which is in accordance with the collectivist cultural values of Vietnam. Somewhat less expected was the effect of various media, such as film and television. Despite the influence of family, the narratives reflect a strong desire to meet individual values, needs and interests in what the students would like their future careers...