Within the dynamic nature of labour markets and work organisations, career systems have witnessed major changes in recent decades. A general shift in career trajectories seems to take place from linear and traditional careers to multidirectional and boundaryless models. Such new emerging careers are seen as flexible, dynamic and fluid, including also many transitions from job to job, or from organisation to organisation. This is in contrast with the traditional view of careers as more static, rigid and structured (Baruch, 2004; Clarke, 2009). Nowadays teachers and educators are also increasingly being required to negotiate and manage their changing career trajectories. There is a need for this, since the restructuring of work practices and institutional structures means that educational organisations can not anymore offer sustainable frames of reference for creating stable careers. In the context of Finnish vocational education and training, this kind of restructuring means that vocational teachers face continuous changes in their work organisations and the contents of their work (e.g. Vähäsantanen & Billett, 2008).

Within the framework of a subject-centred socio-cultural approach, our study investigates the nature of creative processes and agency in negotiating career trajectories within transitional situations. The study focuses especially on negotiations which lead to a decision to leave the educational organisation. In this paper, we describe the processes of making this decision, and how the individual contributions and socio-cultural context are used as resources in these processes. Career is here understood as a product of a dialectical relationship between self and social circumstances (Sikes et al., 1985). We see subjects as active actors who construct and negotiate their career pathways within their socio-cultural context comprising organisational and community frameworks. Thus, we underline the meaning of agency when individuals are shaping their careers within contextually defined opportunities and constraints (e.g. Biesta & Tedder, 2007; Brown, 2004). Creativity is needed for finding novel and meaningful solutions to tensions, conflicts and problems that individuals face when they negotiate their careers within transitional situations (cf. Moran & John-Steiner, 2004).

Baruch, Y. (2004) Transforming career. From linear to multidirectional career paths. Organizational and individual perspectives. Career Development International, 9(1), 58-73. Biesta, G. & Tedder, M. (2007) Agency and learning in the life course: Towards an ecological perspective. Studies in the Education of Adults, 39(2), 132-149. Brown, A. (2004) Engineering identities. Career Development International, 9(3), 245-273. Clarke, M. (2009) Plodders, pragmatists, visionaries and opportunists: Career patterns and employability. Career Development International, 14(1), 8-28. Lieblich, A., Tuval-Mashiach, R. & Zilber, T. (1998). Narrative research: Reading, analysis and interpretation. London: Sage. Moran, S. & John-Steiner, V. (2004). How collaboration in creative work impacts identity and motivation. In D. Miel & K. Littleton (Eds.) Collaborative creativity. Contemporary perspectives (pp.11-25). London: Free Association books. Riessman, C. K. (2008). Narrative methods for the human sciences. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Sikes, M., Measor, L. & Woods, P. (1985) Teacher careers, crisis and continuities. Lewes: The Falmer Press. Vähäsantanen, K. & Billett, S. (2008). Negotiating professional identity: Vocational teachers’ personal strategies in a reform context. In S. Billett, C. Harteis & A. Eteläpelto (Eds.), Emerging perspectives of workplace learning (pp. 35–49). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.