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Double gestures of inclusion and exclusion. Notions of learning outcomes, autonomy, and informed choices in Swedish educational and vocational guidance

Taking as its vantage point a citation from the critical educationalist Thomas Popkewitz, “double gestures of inclusion and exclusion,” the aim of this article is to describe and contextualize the project of inclusion in Swedish educational and vocational guidance, and to identify and to analyze the potentially excluding discourses that may be inherent in that project. Empirically, the article starts with an account of how career counselors describe the desired learning outcomes of their professional activities. The accounts are given in interviews where they comment on the conditions for migrant youth in the transition from school to work, and the professional considerations that follow from these conditions. Among these desired learning outcomes, learning to be an autonomous individual capable of informed choosing is the most central. The emphasis of autonomy and informed choosing is in several ways related to the goal of work life and societal inclusion; on the other hand, a perceived lack of autonomy during the process of choosing secondary education is allegedly ascribed to the category of immigrants, and the immigrant condition. Thus, in the project of inclusion, a potentially excluding way of describing the migrant other is articulated, and “the double gestures of inclusion and exclusion” are hence performed. Still, it is also held that the pursuit of autonomy – as an end goal for the counseling and guiding process – is not unconditional, and it is recognized that certain conditions call for the development of other counseling strategies and learning outcomes.