Edinburgh Napier University

  Amartya Sen's Capability Approach offers great potential as a conceptual framework for promoting social justice and well-being through economic and educational engagement. Yet the capability approach presents researchers with formidable difficulties, not least because it is intentionally left incomplete, and little guidance is available on its application. It is therefore necessary to make choices in order to apply the approach to a specific context. This paper will introduce the issue of social justice in a career development context, and meth-odological challenges in researching capabilities. It will attempt to provide a rationale for methodological choices in four stages. Firstly, the choice of epis-temology and ontology ; secondly, choices of level of analysis and disciplinary perspective ; thirdly, the choice of research methods. An example of career development with disadvantaged NEET young people (not in employment, education or training) in the United Kingdom will be considered.