The question of equity and good quality in counselling can be considered of utmost importance when it comes to a successful integration of immigrants into their new, receiving societies. But, and even more importantly, it can be considered crucial when it comes to the well-being and to the full admittance of these people to their new societies. Employment has been used as one criterion in measuring the success of integration, and so-called integration programmes have been established for ensuring the employment of immigrants.
My research examines how career counsellors in a national integration programme in Finland use power when interacting with their students, who are unemployed people with an immigrant background. I am studying the actual counselling discussions between career counsellors and their clients by recording these discussions and analysing them together with the counsellors in question. The research methods to be used include a data triangulation, stimulated recall interview, a qualitative content analysis on the counselling discussions, and a comparative analysis between the variations and differences of the analysis outcomes. The empirical data has been collected from institutes running the national integration programme and includes twelve career counselling encounters from four different career counsellors, and the interviews with these counsellors.
The phenomenon of power in counselling relationship will be examined through the concepts of agency, advocacy, social control, power strategies, and power roles. Social justice was chosen as the main theoretical approach for this research, as it brings forward very interesting viewpoints on equity in counselling, but also those of equal opportunities and psychological well-being. My presentation will focus on my research questions and hypothesis and research methodology, together with some preliminary results from the empirical data of my research.