Guidance counsellors’ work as a transformative activity: supporting social justice through advocacy

Abstract

Advocacy has been identified as a relevant way for counsellors to respond to the social inequalities facing certain groups in the world of work and education in today's neoliberal context. This article draws on a qualitative study conducted with three groups of guidance counsellors in school settings in Quebec to analyse their advocacy work as a worldtransforming activity from a social justice perspective. Analysing counsellors' activity helps underline not only systemic barriers that guidance counsellors try to address in their day-to-day work in schools, but also, and more importantly, the particular way school counsellors perform advocacy in line with their professional genre: 1) building an alliance with influential actors, 2) building and upholding credibility, and 3) daring to create opportunities. The study highlights the urgent need to create collective conditions within the profession to overcome the organisational constraints associated with the ubiquity of economic rationality in education.