Your new experience awaits. Try the new design now and help us make it even better

REVIEW article

Front. Educ.

Sec. Leadership in Education

Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1615031

Career Orientation as Cross-Curricular Area in Education System of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Provisionally accepted
  • 1University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • 2Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • 3Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul, Türkiye

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

This article explores the integration of Career Orientation as a cross-curricular area within the Core Curriculum in Bosnia and Herzegovina, drawing on a neo-Deweyan theoretical framework which approaches curriculum as a multilayered structure composed of epistemological, pedagogical, anthropological and ecological dimensions. The paper analyzes how key concepts of career orientation are framed in the curriculum and what learning outcomes and pedagogical guidelines are proposed. The results show gap between declarative aspirations presented in the curriculum documents and the necessary prerequisites in practice for implementation of Career Orientation as a cross-curricular area. Analysis shows that the curriculum reflects a declarative shift toward a new learning paradigm in career guidance – one that is dedicated to developing career management skills – rather than the traditional model focused on testing, matching and decision-making. Career Orientation is described as an active, reflective and student-centered process, aligned with broader goals of lifelong learning and personal agency. Additionally, referring to the collaborative and interdisciplinary nature of cross-curricularity, the paper argues that the implementation of Career Orientation depends not only on epistemological and pedagogical dimensions, but also on the ecological, e.g. schools’ capacity to adopt interdisciplinary, participatory and outcome-based teaching practices. Stemming from this part of the research several challenges to implementation of Career Orientation as cross-curricular area were identified, including insufficient teacher support, limited opportunities for teacher collaboration and a lack of adequate educational resources. To ensure further development and sustainability of Career Orientation as a cross-curricular area, the results indicate the need for enhancing the conditions concerning the overall curriculum implementation focusing primarily on developing the professional culture that fosters collaboration, shared responsibility and focuses on students as active learners, as these are at the heart of cross-curricular approaches.

Keywords: career education, Cross-curricular approach, core curriculum, neo-Deweyan theory, career management skills (CMS), Bosnia and Herzegovina

Received: 28 Apr 2025; Accepted: 04 Aug 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Isanović Hadžiomerović and Çapkın. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Amina Isanović Hadžiomerović, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.