Representaciones sociales de la orientación vocacional: un estudio con los estudiantes de la media académica de la Institución Educativa Robinson Pitalúa de Montería, Córdoba

Abstract

The general purpose of the research was to interpret the social representations in the students of the academic middle of the Robinson Pitalúa Educational Institution of Montería - Córdoba about the meaning of vocational orientation in the construction of their life projects. The study is framed in a qualitative approach under an interpretative paradigmatic position, in a phenomenological investigation, following the design of the hermeneutic phenomenological method. Direct observation and in-depth interview were used as data collection techniques and instruments, as well as the Focus Group to students of the 10th and 11th grade of secondary education. The categorical structure was classified into three (3) main units: Vocational guidance, social representations and life project. The interpretation of the findings allowed the identification of 10 sub-categories and 54 emerging properties. The discussion of the interpretive context allowed contrasting the emerging with the existing and the investigative experience itself, resulting in the social representations in this regard being linked to a reference trend towards interest in studying university careers, as a personal vocation, and with the influence of the family, implicitly, as well as the socioeconomic situation in which they develop and the cognitive contribution that they have been given at school. They are also associated with the idea that it is necessary to work first in order to save and pay for those university studies. It was found that they understand the role of vocational guidance in the construction of their life project, attributing to it an awareness-raising, driving, guiding, counseling and advisory role in decision-making. Consequently, strategic guidelines are generated for the configuration of the life project in students of the academic middle, as an opening to the domain of the personal, academic and professional future in accordance with an improvement of individual and collective quality of life. It is concluded in the consideration that vocational guidance should guide students in the selection of the profession or occupation, in the respective information and training, in the study of the labor field and in the evolution to reach that goal; all according to their suitability and from the psychological, social, educational and economic point of view.