Career Education in the final years of Compulsory School in Denmark

This article uses the lens of career education, understood as a systematic attempt to support pupils’ career development, to map and analyse activities described in the Danish national legislation and curriculum for compulsory education. This mapping reveals detailed descriptions of a plethora of interconnected activities spanning from 1st to 10th grade and involving collaboration with career guidance practitioners, upper secondary schools, and employers. The activities identified through the mapping are analysed focusing on the objectives of the activities, target groups, content, responsibility, and organisation and discussed in light of various evaluations of the identified activities as well as research findings. This reveals that despite a cohesive structure (on paper) where each activity builds on outcomes from previous activities, significant challenges exist concerning the provision, meaningfulness for pupils, and expected outcomes of the activities. The metaphor of a house of cards is suggested to capture the progressive structure, its instabilities, and challenges. Finally, the article touches upon the possibilities of using career education as a uniting principle and unifying objective for the plethora of activities in practice.