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Staffan NilssonSenior lecturer

About me

Staffan Nilsson is an associate professor in education in the Department of education, Stockholm University. His main research interests are related to issues concerning the relationship among education, learning and work, professionalisation, professionalism, graduate employability, organisational strategies and methods for securing the long-term supply of competence, for example, talent management, recruitment, and selection, and on the structural balance between demand and supply of competence on the labour market.

 

Selection of publications

Nilsson, S., & Bengtsson, A. (2024). On the professional competence of career guidance counsellors: expectations and experiences of graduating students in Sweden. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling.  https://doi.org/10.1080/03069885.2024.2396113

Nilsson, S., & Hertzberg, F. (2022). On the Professionalism and Professionalisation of Career Guidance and Counselling in Sweden. Nordic Journal of Transitions, Careers and Guidance, 3(1), 1–15. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16993/njtcg.38

Antera, S., Teräs, M., Nilsson, S., & Rehn, H. (2022). Important and achieved competence for Swedish vocational teachers: A survey with teachers and principals. Nordic Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 12(1), 76–102. https://doi.org/10.3384/njvet.2242-458X.2212176

Nilsson, S. (2017). Employability, Employment and the Establishment of Higher Education Graduates in the Labour Market. in M. Tomlinson & L. Holmes. Graduate Employability in Context: Theory, Research and Debate. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 65–85. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57168-7_3

Nilsson, S. (2016/2009). Om anställningsbarhet i professionella grupper. in A. Fejes & G. Berglund. Anställningsbarhet: Perspektiv från utbildning och arbetsliv. Andra upplagan/Första upplagan. Studentlitteratur, Lund, pp. 123–38/pp. 71–86.

Nilsson, S., & Viberg, A. (2016). Om anställningsbarhet och etablering bland högskoleutbildade. in A. Fejes & G. Berglund. Anställningsbarhet: Perspektiv från utbildning och arbetsliv. Andra upplagan. Studentlitteratur, Lund, pp. 37–58.

Nilsson, S., & Rubenson, K. (2014). On the determinants of employment-related organised education and informal learning. Studies in Continuing Education, 36(3), 304–321. https://doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2014.904785

Nilsson, S., & Ekberg, K. (2014). Förutsättningar för arbetsförmåga och anställningsbarhet på arbetsmarknaden. in K. Ekberg. (red.). Den relativa arbetsförmågan. Studentlitteratur, Lund, pp. 109–124. 

Nilsson, S., & Nyström, S. (2013). Adult learning, education, and the labour market in the employability regime. European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults, 4(2), 171–187. https://doi.org/10.3384/rela.2000-7426.rela9007

Nilsson, S., & Ekberg, K. (2013). Employability and work ability: Returning to the labour market after long-term absence. Work: A journal of prevention, assessment and rehabilitation, 44(4), 449–457. https://doi.org/10.3233/WOR-2012-1402

Nilsson, S., & Ellström P.E. (2012). Employability and Talent Management: Challenges for HRD practices. European Journal of Training and Development, 36(1), 26-45. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090591211192610

Nilsson, S. (2010). On the Meaning of Higher Education in Professional Practice. Journal of Education and Work, 23(3), 255–274. https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2010.486397

Nilsson, S. (2010). Enhancing Individual Employability. Education + Training, 52(6/7), 540–551.  https://doi.org/10.1108/00400911011068487

Nilsson S. (2007). From Higher Education To Professional Practice: A comparative study of physicians’ and engineers’ learning and competence use. Linköping Studies in Behavioural Science No. 120. The Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Linköping University.

Nilsson, S., Carstensen, J. M., & Pershagen, G. (2001). Mortality among male and female smokers in Sweden: A 33 year follow up. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 55(11), 825–830. https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.55.11.825

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • On the Professionalism and Professionalisation of Career Guidance and Counselling in Sweden

    2022. Staffan Nilsson, Fredrik Hertzberg. Nordic Journal of Transitions, Careers and Guidance 3 (1), 1-15

    Article

    The aim of this article is to describe and discuss professionalism and professionalisation of career guidance counselling in Sweden in relation to different logics of professional practice. The transformation of the labour market and the educational system in Sweden over the past decades has led to an increase in the importance of individual educational and occupational choices and development of career management skills in relation to individual trajectories based on personal interests. Also, individual agency has increased in importance in relation to the quantitative planning of secondary and tertiary education aiming to match supply and demand in the labour market. Within the dominant functionalistic technical-instrumental paradigm, which focus on individual agency and rational choices, the importance of career guidance and counselling has increasingly come into focus. Through the incorporation of market-oriented management logics in the welfare sector, the previously dominant logics of professional responsibility have in many professional groups been replaced by professional accountability. In Sweden, the process of professionalising the emerging semi-profession of career guidance and counselling is driven by policymakers. Rather than being defined by practising professionals, professionalism is externally defined in reports and policy documents shaped by elites and experts, outlining core competences in career guidance and counselling related to political objectives. The practice of career guidance and counselling is not strongly governed and there is little external evaluation. The professionals have autonomy and relatively high degrees of freedom in formulating problems and solutions, but little organisational support. 

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  • Employability, Employment and the Establishment of Higher Education Graduates in the Labour Market

    2017. Staffan Nilsson. Graduate Employability in Context, 65-85

    Chapter

    The world of work in Sweden and other OECD countries has undergone major structural changes in recent decades. There has been a shift from a commodity-based industrial society to a knowledge-based economy (noted decades ago) driven by technological innovation, increased demands for efficiency and productivity, new ways of organising work and increased international competition. The labour market structure varies between different countries. In Europe there has been a polarisation over the past several years, with increasing numbers of top-paying and low-paying jobs, and slower growth in the middle due mainly to a loss of jobs in manufacturing and construction. There has been a shift in the labour market, in for example Sweden, that will become even more prominent in the coming decades when an increasing number of people will be working in the service sector (both private and public, predominantly the latter) and fewer in industry or agriculture and forestry. The most resilient jobs are in knowledge-intensive services in both the private and the public sector, such as health and education. Jobs are being upgraded and in Europe increasingly require longer periods of study. This development is prominent in Sweden, where workers report experiences of reorganisation or structural changes and the introduction of new technology in the workplace to a greater extent than in most other European countries (Eurofound 2015).

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