Navigating Contradictions: Insight into the Development of Career Agency of Young Adults in Vulnerable Positions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper ‘ Contradictions that hinder and catalyze simultaneously: insight in developing career agency of young adults in vulnerable positions’ aims to explore young adults’ agency development as an emergent and dynamic process, shaped by both external limitations and intrapersonal development. Using a CHAT perspective the authors found four types of contradictions that the participating young adults faced while pursuing their career. They explain how the young adults dealt with these contradictions using the concepts of imagination and formative intravention. As such, they offer a conceptualization of the emergence of agency and suggest that overcoming contradictions through intraventions can lead to agency development. 

The manuscript is highly relevant for the field as the CHAT perspective uncovered dynamics in career agency emergence and development that other perspectives have not and probably cannot. The CHAT perspective is not a mainstream perspective and could use some explaining in order to take along readers who are used to other perspectives. Especially the dialectical relation between person and environment could be illustrated, by an example or otherwise.

The authors claim to focus on the development of career agency. However, the article largely explains the emergence of agency. It is only at the end of the article that agency development is discussed. There it is argued that agency develops by overcoming contradictions through interventions in increasingly complex situations. However, this can only be a suggestion, as this claim does not follow from the results nor is it hypothesized from the conceptual framework. Nevertheless, the article remains very relevant in my opinion.

The article is not only of scientific importance, but also socially relevant, because more and more young adults find themselves in vulnerable positions, while society needs their potential contribution more and more.

An interesting point of discussion may be: if intrapersonal interventions do lead to agency, to what extent is agency then something that arises from the interplay of person and environment instead of something that can be attributed to the person?

The general structure of the manuscript is fine, although the reader could be guided better at some points. Within the paragraphs, the reasoning could be clearer: for example by making some thinking steps smaller and by referring to previously discussed concepts at appropriate places. 

 

Some specific comments:

1. 1:

- The paper could use a shorter, catchier title.

- The sentence that career competence theories can confirm a static view of career agency is too straightforward and could be formulated in a more nuanced way. For example the work of Marinka Kuipers on career competences also focuses on the development of career competences.

 

1. 2:

- see overall comment on explaining a bit more about CHAT

- I don’t understand the sentence: “… that career agency can emerge even when it is not immediately visible.”

 

1. 3:

- Sentence “However, while understanding agency as the interplay between structural forces and agency is compelling, …” seems to be missing the word ‘development’ after the first ‘agency’.

- as said, I don’t think the authors clarify the emergence between agency and structure. I would say ‘explain’.

 

At p.1 to 4 As a reader I was in search of what conception of agency the authors used. I found parts of a definition or understanding of agency: “Shaping their careers as integral to their self-construction … as agency” (p.1), “agency as action within a social framework” (p.3), “agency as a phenomenon arising from the interaction between a person and social structures” (p.3), and “taking agentic actions involves engaging with the environment in ways that enables change” (p.4). This could have been presented in a more structed way, or summarized somewhere in order to facilitate me as a reader.

 

1. 4:

- The concept of double stimulation is explained here. However, it is only at the fourth Alinea that the second stimulus is described. Here too, the authors could make the paragraph easier to read by a more structured line of reasoning.

- At the same paragraph I wondered what the connection with the dialectical contradictions of paragraph 2.3 is. This could already be made explicit. For example, by a heads up at the end of 2.3 or by mentioning the type of contradiction that aligns with the accompanying conflict of motives.

 

1. 5:

- ‘transformative agency’, a new concept. Is career agency from a CHAT perspective always transformative?

- How is agentic action different from agency? The authors could be more explicit about what is meant by these concepts. It is now up to the reader to explain exactly what the authors mean.

 

 

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

See the attachment for your review. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachement

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article has been improved considerably. I appreciate the efforts of the authors to process the comments. The reasoning is clearer now.

Still, in my opinion, the authors’ conception of career agency does not becomes entirely clear. I suspect that this is a matter of formulating more sharply.

For example, in 2.2 it becomes clear that the authors do not see agency as an inherent trait of a person or a static 'sense' of control. The authors also point out shortcomings of a view of agency as a phenomenon that arises from the interaction between person and social structures. But it is unclear what they do and do not take along from these views for their conception of agency.

I assume that they do not endorse the first view, but do the second. However, that is not mentioned. Later in the article the authors formulate in such a way that agency can be understood as a personal trait, but also as something that arises in the interaction between person and environment. At some places it remains unclear, as in the first sentence of 2.4: “Developing agency involves dealing with the environment in ways that enable change”. Here agency can be understood as a trait that a person can develop, but also as something that arises when a person  with the environment in a certain way. And sometimes it seems to belong more to a person, as in the first sentence of 4.2, where it is about the development of her agency.

The same kind of confusion can be avoided for ‘developing agency’. This could be understood as agency that develops during person-environment interactions, but also as a person that develop agency.

Besides formulating more sharply, the authors might also want to elaborate on their findings in terms of agency as an individual trait or phenomenon arising from the interaction between person and their environment. For example when explaining that a person can initiate change through formative intraventions, thus fostering agency development. There the authors might argue that even though the formative intravention takes place within a person and is even initiated by that person, agency is not perceived as a trait and can still be seen as emerging from interaction between the person and the environment, namely an imagined interaction.

To me this seems important not only to avoid confusion, but also to convince readers who are not familiar with your CHAT perspective on agency, to apreciate such a perspective. Now the reader could understand the formative intraventions for agency as a personal trait. And then, why bother to understand agency from the for many hard to grasp CHAT perspective?

The same goes for agency from the perspective of whole life career theories. Is the authors' conception of agency embedded in this perspective, and if so how can that be traced back in the findings on how agency develops?

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors, 

Thank you so much for your detailed revisions, keeping a close eye on detail, and for addressing each comment with corrections or clarifications. The only two minor edits noted would be a) ensuring that the visual conceptual framework is accessible or readable using a design tool that may be clearer in formatting and development, and b) correcting references to ensure that DOIs are present, links are active, and future publications under review state "forthcoming" per journal recommendation. 

Overall, I commend the authors on their original work and appreciate the thoughtful edits for transparency. I believe the edits greatly improved the article and made it more impactful for the reader. 

Thank you again for submitting to Social Sciences.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx