I have recently published a new paper in the NICEC Journal called Impartiality: A critical review.

In the article I try to (re)open debate about the concept of ‘impartiality’ in career guidance. My main point is that while the concept of impartiality is at the centre of professional ethics for career guidance in the UK, it is poorly defined and weakly theorised.

I go on to map the concept of impartiality and explore some of the challenges that are associated with it. I argue for a clarified definition of impartiality which recognises that the existing definition of impartiality is made up of three overlapping, but distinct concepts: institutional independence, outcome neutrality and political neutrality. I argues that the grouping of these three ideas under a single term is unhelpful as they all raise different issues and objections.

I then explore some of the challenges associated with impartiality, notably: ambiguity; application in practice; alignment with career theory, tensions with other ethical values; and practicing within partial funding regimes.

Finally, and hopefully, fairly constructively, I suggest some some ways forward. Broadly these are that we: (1) need to use our terminology more carefully; (2) should narrow the definition of impartiality to focus on the the careers professionals right to support clients in a way which is independent from the institutional interests of their employer or the funders of their service; (3) rebalance professional ethics in a way that gives a greater prominence to the value of ‘transparency’, particularly in relation to more contentious and political issues that need to be addressed in guidance; and (4) need to have a more open public debate about these issues, which ultimately means a willingness to rethink our practice in the light of a range of contemporary challenges.

I’m sure that everyone won’t agree with everything that I’ve said in this paper, but I hope that people agree that there is value in the discussion. Please add your thoughts below.

Read Impartiality: A critical review