The topic of this paper concerns the development of career guidance practices within higher education, especially from working life perspective. We are introducing an idea of pedagogical horizons for working  life in higher education. The aim is to provide a pedagogic model, which is useful in understanding both, the students need and future oriented career questions, and educational contexts, in which the guidance is provided to support the students’ knowledge, awareness and competence of working life.

The model is based on theoretical scrutiny of the “future orientation” presented by Savickas (2005) and “horizons for action” by Hodkinson and Sparkes (1997), combined with the pedagogical understanding of teaching and guidance in higher education context. Students’ future orientation is approached from a holistic life design perspective (Savickas & al. 2009). This draws attention to the particular career concerns which society makes individuals ask to themselves. According to Savickas (2005), positive answers to these questions can reinforce individual ability for his/her own career construction. From the perspective of university students, there are several kinds of contexts in which the career questions are made (Lairio & Penttinen 2006). These constitute individual horizons for action (Hodkinson and Sparkes 1997). Both, personal habitus and the opportunity structures of the labour market influence to these actions.  From the individual perspective, the horizons for action can both limit and enable our understanding of the possibilities of career choices we can make. The work of Savickas and his colleagues (2009) also brings life-long, holistic, contextual and preventive dimensions to the development of the model.

In addition to the individual dimension it has been our aim to add a pedagogic perspective to the model. It provides with a broader educational context to the same phenomenon. The students’ future questions and the possibilities of working life orientation are presented in relation to different contexts, including teaching and supervision, tutoring, career guidance, peer support, mentoring, internships, student exchange, work experience and leisure time activities. These contexts can be seen as spaces which can enhance students’ working life orientation, and in which the students interact with the teachers and other staff members, as well as peer students, and gain learning experiences. Thus the understanding of the constitution of pedagogical horizons for work life is crucial in development of both, pedagogics and guidance in higher education.

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