Conceptualising

The current global context is complex and precarious, where the Anthropocene, the spectre of a new Cold War, economic instability, and the rise of AI with the attendant possibility of mass unemployment, present existential challenges to humanity. In such a context ‘career’ and career guidance policy and practice are required to rethink their place and influence and consider whether collective transdisciplinary approaches are key to broaching such challenges and providing imaginative solutions

Critical perspectives on career and career guidance (COCAG) – COST Action CA23112 – gathers scholars across Europe and beyond to explore such challenges, to consider how careers are changing in the contemporary world and consider what response is required from research, public policy and practice.

On May 6^th and 7^th, COCAG organises its second conference, with particular focus on how the context for career is changing and what this will mean for both policy and practice. The conference programme will include keynotes, oral communications, workshops, as well as networking and social events.

Keynotes

Full name

Job title

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Committees

Organisation Committee

Mariana Lucas Casanova
inED, ESE-IPP (Portugal)
Filomena Parada
Universidade Lusófona (Portugal)
Richard Gee
Nottingham Trent University (UK)
Ghazal Vahidi
University Of Derby (UK)
Aman Mankoo
University Of Derby (UK)
Iva Černja Rajter
Institut Drustvenih Znanosti Ivo Pilar (Croatia)
Marijana Matijaš
Catholic University of Croatia (Croatia)‍

Scientific Committee

Mariana Lucas Casanova
inED, ESE-IPP (Portugal)
Filomena Parada
Universidade Lusófona (Portugal)
Richard Gee
Nottingham Trent University (UK)
Ghazal Vahidi
University Of Derby (UK)
Iva Černja Rajter
Institut Drustvenih Znanosti Ivo Pilar (Croatia)
Petra Elftorp
University of Limerick (Ireland)
Tibor Borbély-Pecze
Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary)
Kristina Mariager-Anderson
Aarhus University (Denmark)
Nurten Karacan Özdemir
Hacettepe Universitesi (Turkey)
Limor Kessler Ladelsky
The Academic Center for Law and Science.
The Graduate School of Business. Hod Asharon (Israel)
and
Department of Management, Bar Ilan University, (Israel)

Location

Porto is a modern European city served by an international airport, railways, and a public transportation system that includes both bus services and subway lines.

ESE is located in the main university area of Porto, 10 minutes away from the city centre by subway. Easily accessible by public transportation, the campus is just a 10-minute walk from the Hospital São João subway station (yellow line) and is also served by buses. If you are driving, use this map for directions.

The entrance to our campus parking is located on Rua Dr. Roberto Frias.

By plane: You can take a taxi or metro to reach ESE.
By car: ESE is close to the access points of the A1, A3, and A4 highways.
By metro: Take the yellow line. It takes 12 minutes from the city centre.
By train: Go to Campanhã or S. Bento Station and then take the metro or a bus to ESE.
By bus: Routes 204, 205, 300, 301, 305, 603, 704, 803 (STCP).

Location and Transports

Escola Superior de Educação
Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 602 4200-465 Porto
Tel. 22 507 34 60
GPS:N 41° 10′ 48″ , W 8° 35′ 49″

Metro
The exit for ESE | P.PORTO is at the Hospital de São João stop on line D (yellow).

Line D connects Vila D'Este (Gaia) to Hospital de São João, passing through Trindade, where it connects with the other metro lines.

Bus Lines
204 - Foz | São João Hospital
205 – Campanhã | São João Hospital
300 – Aliados | São João Hospital
604 – Airport | São João Hospital

Accomodation

These are mere suggestions for different price ranges

Near Escola Superior de Educação:

ibis Porto São João13 minutes walk

Eurostars Oporto21 minutes walk

Hotel Portinari8 minutes walk

In the City Centre:

ibis Porto Centro Mercado Do Bolhão

ibis Porto Centro São Bento

Grande Hotel do Porto
‍Eurostars Porto Douro

Eurostars Porto Centro

Vera Cruz Hotel

Axis Porto Aliados

Turim

One Shot Aliados Goldsmith

COCAG Conference 2026 Contact:
cocagconference2026@gmail.com

Programme

To be announced

Wednesday, May 6^th

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Na tabela abaixo será introduzido o texto que submeter com o programa. Por favor indique devidamente qual o título, subtítulo e corpo de texto para cada entrada.

Abaixo apresentam-se exemplos do que poderá ser o programa.
Considere-se a primeira entrada como EXEMPLO. As seguintes têm texto representativo.

09:30 - 10:00

Opening Ceremony

Sofia Mendes
Assistant Professor and researcher at Fundação Minerva
Lusíada University, Chair of the Board of Educational Psychology,
Portuguese Association of Psychologists

10:00 - 10:45

Keynote SPeaker

Dr. Alexander NunN

The University of Manchester

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Challenging the idea of Career and Paid Employment in the Changing Global Economy

10:45 - 11:00

Coffee-Break

11:00 - 13:00

COCAG - Conceptualising Career for the Precarious 21^st Century

Contributions from…

Theory - WG 1

Mariana Lucas Casanova, inED, ESE-IPP (Portugal);
Richard Gee, Nottingham Trent University (UK);
Limor Kessler Ladelsky, The Academic Center for Law and Science. The Graduate School of Business. Hod Asharon (Israel)

Policy - WG2

Petra Elftorp, University of Limerick (Ireland)

Practice - WG3

Kristina Mariager-Anderson, Aarhus University (Denmark);
Nurten Karacan Özdemir, Hacettepe Universitesi (Turkey)

13:00 - 14:00

Lunch (on site)

14:00 - 15:40

Session 1:

Career, Precarity and Radical Imaginaries:

Critical and Relational Approaches

Moderator:

Sanja Petkovska

15:40 - 16:00

Coffee-Break

16:00 - 17:45

Session 2

Agency, Reflexivity and Emancipation in Careers under Uncertainty

Moderator:

Tristram Hooley

Session 3

Online Parallel Session: From Algorithmic Control to Emancipatory Career Guidance

Moderator:

Tom Staunton

19:30

End of day 1

Dinner at Torreão Restaurant

Social project that hires people who are at risk of social exclusion

info

Thursday, May 7^th

09:30 - 11:00

Parallel Sessions

Session 4:

Inclusive Careers for Social Justice: Critical, Participatory and Emancipatory Approaches

Moderator:

Allen/Kim

Session 5:

Career Trajectories, Constraints and Justice: Critical Reconfigurations

Moderator:

Végh Judit

11:00 - 11:15

Coffee-break

11:15 - 12:00

Keynote SPeaker

José Soeiro

Sociology Department of the University of Porto

12:00 - 13:30

Session 6:

Precarious Careers: Policy, Justice and Futures

Moderator:

Victoria Metcalf

13:30 - 14:30

Lunch (on site)

14:30 - 15:30

Re-conceptualising careers for the future: Reflections Across Theory, Policy and Practice (Tristram Hooley, University Of Derby, UK)

15:30 - 15:45

Coffee-Break

15:45 - 17:00

Making Connections for Future Action

The edited book and the special issue (Fiona Christie, The Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, United Kingdom)
COCAG Grants and Mobility (Ingrid Bårdsdatter Bakke, University of Applied Sciences, Norway)
ECADOC 2026 (Conor Mc Guckin, Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland)
Collaboration for future action (Rie Thomsen, Aarhus University, Denmark)

18:00

End of day 2

2-hour tour with The Worst Tours

(a project that promotes social and political debate about urban development)

info

List of Oral Communications Sessions

Session 1: Career, Precarity and Radical Imaginaries: Critical and Relational Approaches

Moderator:

Sanja Petkovska

Bilon-Piórko Anna: Career learning and education for response-able sustainable development: Relational perspectives and ideas
Roland Lami: Career Making under Structural Insecurity: A Critical Inquiry into Employment Policy and Career Guidance in Albania
Shahini Besa: Career Without Futurity: Theorizing Collective Livelihood Pathways for Guidance in the Precarious Anthropocene
Toiviainen, Sanna: Using utopian pedagogies to reimagine career guidance practice
Sanja Petkovska: Defining the Notion of Crisis in the Context of Contemporary Careers Through the Lenses of Critical Social Theory

Session 2: Agency, Reflexivity and Emancipation in Careers under Uncertainty

Moderator:

Tristram Hooley

Coelho, João Vasco: Against ‘sad passions’: Careers as trajectories of becoming in conditions of uncertainty.
Fiona Christie: Re-imagining agency for Critical Career Studies: an exploration of reflexivity and critical consciousness
Demirdağ, Seyithan: Careers under Crisis: Reconceptualising Employability, Community, and Sustainability in Career Guidance
Ricky Gee: A sociological imagined future for ‘career’. Critiquing the undercurrent of progress so essential to career conceptualisation
ÜNSAL Fırat: Careers in the Shadow of AI and Precarity: Towards a Critical Reimagining of Career Guidance
Tristram Hooley: The emancipation of career: Utopian perspectives

Session 3 Online Parallel Session: From Algorithmic Control to Emancipatory Career Guidance

Moderator:

Tom Staunton

Bilal Çankır, Istanbul Medeniyet University: The Impact of AI-Powered Career Development Systems on the Precarious Working Life of the 21st Century
Tom Staunton, iCeGS, The University of Derby: The Masters Tools: Contesting the ideological basis of artificial intelligence and it's relationship to an emancipatory career guidance
Nadia Molek, Faculty of Organization studies in Novo mesto: Precarious Academic Careers in the Age of Digitalisation
Jynge, Julie Sikin Bhanji: Developing Critical Career Theory: Governing Public Services to champion Social Justice
Akman Emrah Ordu University, Turkiye: A Qualitative Analysis of the Career Experiences of Laid-off Engineers and Engineering Students
Donovan Barba-Reynoso, Universidad Panamericana: Critical Perspectives on Vocational Assessment for Technical Workers in a Work-Study Program in a Mexican Private University

Session 4: Inclusive Careers for Social Justice: Critical, Participatory and Emancipatory Approaches

Moderator:

Allen/Kim

Keren Coney: Taking a Freirean approach: applying transformative pedagogy to create inclusive careers provision
Ferrari Lea: Reimagining Career Counseling for Adults with Disabilities: invisible resources and constraints in making sense of experiences of vulnerability.
Kehoe, Michèle: Intellectual disability goes to work: Challenges for career theory and practice. Lessons from the Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities (TCPID: Ireland)
Oliveira, Taísa: Participatory Career Research with Youth as Methodological Innovation for Epistemic Justice and Structural Change
Allen/Kim: Earning while learning: student employment and the case for Employment Rights Literacy
Roseni Emilda Shifting sands and future paths: A critical look at career in precarious Albania background.

Session 5 Parallel session: Career Trajectories, Constraints and Justice: Critical Reconfigurations

Moderator:

Végh Judit

Ozcan / Handan: Beyond Linear Careers: Reconfiguring Women’s Career Trajectories Through Reproductive Health, Motherhood and Care Work
Lennox, Emma: Career Guidance at the Edges: Sustainable Support for Non-Linear Journeys
Végh Judit: The Privilege Paradox of Expatriate Careers in Times of Crisis: A Critical Perspective on Global Careers, Identity, and Precarity
Ana Tomovska Misoska: Careers Under Constraint: How Institutional Power Shapes Early Career Researchers’ Careers Across National Contexts
Mottershaw, Stacey: From Habitus to Advocacy: Critical perspectives on class, career formation and social justice in higher education
Mathai Jophin Unjust objectivity: Reframing ethics in career guidance for social and ecological justice

Session 6 – Precarious Careers: Policy, Justice and Futures

Moderator:

Victoria Metcalf

Kübra YENEL: Reconceptualising Career Guidance under Precarity: A Critical Policy Perspective from Education Systems
Ferid Azemi: Challenging Social Inequality Through Career Guidance: Policy Gaps
Theo Zacharis: Re-thinking Career and Career Guidance in an Age of Precarity: Translating European Policy into Practice
wang/yi: Rethinking Careers in the Digital Precarity Era: AI, Platforms, and Policy Implications
Metcalf, Victoria: ‘Market-Making’ for the Green Transition: An Eco-Critical Perspective on Career Guidance and Employability
Whelan, Nuala: Disentangling adult guidance from conditionality: towards meaningful employability services

Abstract List

Registration

Estudante

20€

Pagamento deve ser efetuado através de transferência bancária

Interactive Workshops

Networking Opportunities

Resource Hub

Roundtable Discussions

Certification of Attendance

Inscrição

Docente

40€

Pagamento deve ser efetuado através de transferência bancária

Interactive Workshops

Expert Guest Speakers

Networking Opportunities

Panel Discussions

Resource Hub

Live Q&A Sessions

Roundtable Discussions

Certification of Attendance

Lunch

Inscrição

Enroll

—
Please note that
Registration ends on April 29^th

Parcerias

FAQs

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Contacto

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Conceptualising

Career

For

_____

The

Precarious

21st century

Informing policy

and practice

May 6-7, 2026

Escola Superior de Educação

Politécnico do Porto, Portugal

About

Keynotes

Committees

Location

Programme

Registration

—Please note that Registration ends on April 29th

Parcerias

FAQs

—
Please note that
Registration ends on April 29^th