Forced to Deal with the Future: Uncertainty and Risk in Vocational Choices among Portuguese Secondary School Students

Abstract

In contemporary societies, adolescents' individuation is largely staged within the educational system, and is defined by several schooling options. This is particularly true when young people reach upper secondary education, as this transition implies the definition of a personal project. In the Portuguese context, authenticity is linked to the ‘obligation’ of choosing – by means of a compulsory vocational choice. To define a personal project that gives studies a meaning becomes a problem pupils have to deal with. Supported on empirical data based on in‐depth interviews to pupils attending 10th and 12th years of upper secondary education in Portuguese public schools, this article discusses some of these issues. Specially, we intend to explore pupils' obligation to exhibit their autonomy by choosing a school path with the awareness of risks that may emerge along with their options.

The distinction of excellent students in the Portuguese state school as a strategy of educational marketing accountability

“…Privileging the subject's point of view, we tried to demonstrate the probable impact that the institutional marketing strategies exert in the construction of the school's image and choice. This approach, centred on two institutional actors, focused, on the one hand, on the fact that the head teachers are invested in the role of promoting educational success and the need for accountability to the central administration and the community, and, on the other hand, on the fact that secondary school students have a relative degree of autonomy in their choice of school and scientific area (Vieira et al 2013). With this degree of education being crucial for the access to higher education and to the most prestigious courses, the distinction of the best students in public rituals works as both a strategy for promoting the school image and the legitimisation of the political action of head teachers.…”

Aproximaciones a los mundos juveniles : diálogos iberoamericanos

“…La otra tendencia -que es, quizás, la que más nos importa, por el impacto en la forma como se entiende y se lidia con el futuro-es la de la "alumnización" (Vieira et al, 2015), en la que alumno y joven pasaron a ser casi sinónimos durante parte sustancial del recorrido inicial de la vida, y donde la escuela se constituyó definitivamente como el espacio institucional por excelencia de la socialización juvenil (Vieira et al, 2013), consolidándose progresivamente como el eje biográfico de referencia de los jóvenes actuales, casi universalmente escolarizados. De hecho, 90 % de los jóvenes entre los 15 y los 19 años eran estudiantes de tiempo completo en Portugal en 2018; en el caso de Brasil, los datos reportan el grupo de los 15 a los 17 y la cifra asciende a casi el 80 %, en el mismo año.…”

All that is Solid Melts into Work: Self-Work, the ‘Learning Ethic’ and the work Ethic

“…As Paul Willis's 1977 highly influential book Learning to Labour highlighted, even the act of disengagement from schools can be related to cultures of work. In recent years, the ethos and practices of individualization, aspiration and risk are correspondingly interwoven across education and work (see, eg, Vierea et al ., 2013), and viewed as an appropriate response to those who appear to be ‘shirking’ their responsibility of hard work (see Allen, 2013; Skeggs, 2011). There are, therefore, overlapping logics and ethics of learning and working.…”