Preparing adolescents for transitioning from school to work has become a priority across all developed countries due to the increasingly difficult labour market conditions and changes related to technological advances. Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has created additional uncertainties in the world of work. This article reviews the concept of career-related teacher support (CRTS) and illustrates the different roles that school teachers can have in influencing students’ career planning and decision making. The information should be beneficial to teachers, counsellors, researchers and policy-makers seeking to optimise school-based career guidance and counselling practices. Brief suggestions are also provided for future research and practice.

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Purpose: This article aims to (1) systematically examine the development of career guidance practices in Hong Kong over the past 40 years, (2) discuss developmental attention to the career-related self-concept of diverse learners, and (3) propose a multidimensional model of self-concept by integrating the career-related domains with recent advances in self-concept research pertaining to students’ in-school and post-school outcomes. Design/Approach/Methods: This article charts the developmental trend of career guidance and counseling (CGC) over more than 40 years in Hong Kong. The article also examines key findings relating to self-concept research made in the fields of education and career counseling in the past 50 years. Findings: For 50 years, Hong Kong has progressively recognized the importance of CGC. The government’s continued determination to refine its policies and practices in this domain was succinctly highlighted in the Chief Executive’s 2018 policy address. However, many challenges pertaining the professional competence of career guidance teachers and the ability of school administrators to manage the paradigm shift from informal to formal career guidance and counseling practices (CGCPs) remain. Meanwhile, the effects of these CGCPs on students’ gains of career-related abilities and interests directly and indirectly remain under-researched. Originality/Value: This article integrates research into the developmental trend of career guidance practices in secondary schools and the study of academic self-concept. The article builds upon previous self-concept research by proposing an extended self-concept model that includes the career-related domain, setting a theoretical model for further research to explore. Finally, the article demonstrates the importance of tailoring career guidance activities in secondary education to reflect the diverse career-related self-concepts held by today’s students with diverse abilities.

Teachers play a critical role in facilitating the career and life planning of secondary school students. This paper describes the development of the Career-Related Teacher Support Scale (Hong Kong Secondary Students Form). Based on data obtained from 493 students in Hong Kong, five types of career-related teacher support were identified with the most important form of support being teachers' knowledge about the world of work and study path requirements. A correlation model yielded the best fit to the data. No variance in response pattern appeared across genders, and the new scale was found to have good validity and reliability. Keywords Social support • Career guidance • Secondary schools Résumé Enquête sur le soutien des enseignant•e•s lié à la carrière pour les étudiant•e•s chinois du secondaire à Hong KongLes enseignant•e•s jouent un rôle essentiel en facilitant la planification de la carrière et de la vie des élèves du secondaire. Cet article décrit le développement de l'échelle Career-Related Teacher Support Scale (Hong Kong Secondary Students Form). Sur la base des données obtenues auprès de 493 étudiantes à Hong Kong, cinq types de soutien des enseignantes liés à la carrière ont été identifiés, la forme de soutien la plus importante étant les connaissances des enseignantes sur le monde du travail et les exigences des filières d'études. Un modèle de corrélation s'est avéré le mieux adapté aux données. Aucune variance dans le modèle de réponse n'est apparue entre les sexes, et la nouvelle échelle s'est avérée avoir une bonne validité et fiabilité.

The concept of career adaptability has been widely applied across cultural and educational settings in the hope of finding working solutions to facilitate school-to-work transition. In Hong Kong, China, there are signs showing that career adaptability scores are increasingly being used as the dominant benchmark to measure the effectiveness of career interventions designed for student populations. However, this concept is developed primarily based on western values. For it to fulfill its theoretical promises, the concept needs to be reinterpreted in the local context. This means that issues concerning the measurement and interpretation of career adaptability need to be clarified due to cultural differences. This paper attempts to address this issue by reviewing published studies on adaptability across other disciplines of psychology. Results showed that most published studies in Hong Kong on career adaptability did not use data and methodological triangulation research methodologies. Overall, this review shows that a reductionist approach has been applied to the study of career adaptability in Hong Kong. The current understanding of career adaptability remains largely at the psychological level only. Cognitive and behavioral changes are seldom studied or reported despite their importance. Implications on how future research could be enhanced are discussed.