ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the role of the career development practitioner integrating theory with their practice through engaging in practitioner research. It describes the systems theory framework developed over the last twenty years by Mary McMahon and Wendy Patton as a way of visualising complexity of the individual in context when considering career development. The chapter considers the practitioner researcher in context and identifies barriers and enablers to practitioners engaging in research. It describes the end-user of a career and employability service, career development practitioner, service manager, educator and researcher. The chapter highlights the commonality between all these identities: they are all individual 'careerists' in their individual systems, recursively influencing one another in social and organisational systems and operating in the same wider geo-political and environmental context. At individual level, the practitioner-researcher might be at any stage of career development, taking part in initial in-service training or pursuing research as part of their continuing professional development activity.
