Kobus Maree is a full Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. His main research interests are career construction and life design (counselling), emotional-social intelligence and social responsibility, as well as learning facilitation in mathematics. He links research results to appropriate career choices and to life designing. We invited Professor Maree to discuss with us his search of career counselling for all and especially his experiences of indigenising career (construction) counselling in the contexts of Global South countries …
What have brought you to the field of career guidance and counselling?
My mother’s unfailingly kindness to people (especially the ‘marginalised’). I always wanted to become a missionary but eventually gravitated towards our field because of my profound admiration for the magic work of Mark Savickas especially.
What is your hope for the IAEVG conference in Bratislava?
Gently innovating and updating the theory of, research on, and practice of career psychology to ‘improve’ the career-lives of people with vulnerability and disadvantage especially.
Could you share with us an (un)usual tradition in your country that you enjoy?
The large number of people that sell or purchase merchandise at traffic lights (mostly referred to as “robots” over here) and on street corners.
What is your favourite motto or saying?
How you deal with talents, events, and challenges defines you.
Prof. Maree has been invited to read a keynote at the International Congress of Psychology to be held in Prague, Czechia, in July 2020.
This important event on the Psychology calendar only takes place once every four years.
Call for papers – ‘Post-modernising guidance and counselling: decent work and successful career-lives?’
International Symposium Series
Board Update
19 September 2017
Prepared by: Deirdre Hughes & Frans Meijers (Co-editors)
Special Issues in Progress
Post-modernising guidance and counselling: decent work and successful career-lives?’
Co-editors: Prof. Kobus Maree (South Africa) and Prof. Maria Duarte (Portugal)
A call for papers is written but not yet distributed.
Expected date for publication: Vol. 48, No. 1, 2020
Prof. Maree was awarded the Psychological Association of SA Lifetime Award
Prof. Maree was awarded the Psychological Association of SA Lifetime Award in recognition of a person that has dedicated his life to Psychology in South Africa at the Pan African Psychology Congress in Durban on 19 September 2017
The article 'Why career counselling is more valuable now than ever before' has been published on The Conversation.
Read the article at the theconversation.com website!