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THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO CAREER GUIDANCE OF STUDENTS IN MODERN CONDITIONS
S. N. Chistyakova
The Federal Law “On Education in the Russian Federation” covers the issue of career guidance in many aspects. Article 14 states that it is necessary to ensure a person’s self-identity, and to create conditions for self-realization. It is emphasized that one of the most important indicators of the efficient modernization of Russian education is the success of career guidance.
However, currently there are no sufficient resources to address this important governmental task. We can point out several factors in the field of education that adversely affect the career guidance of schoolchildren: (a) transformation of education into a paid service fundamentally changes the nature of interaction in the system of education, the structure of motives and value-based approaches, reducing the availability of educational services for the poor segments of the population; (b) under conditions of social uncertainty the role of the Institute of Education is also changing. Being the most important factor in the reproduction of human potential, education is intended to ensure the continuity of cultural heritage and to develop young people’s ability to renew it. However, in everyday life, young people are constantly faced with a desire that’s difficult to agree on: to earn money and at the same time to succeed in education (there are constantly risks associated with the incompatibility of study and work); (c) it is impossible not to draw attention to the catastrophic overload of students in connection with the modernization of education. The academic load of senior schoolchildren sometimes reaches 167 hours per week, even though there are only 168 hours in a week; (d) there is growing tension due to imbalances in the preparation and the use of specialists, with overproduction of the so-called “fashionable” professions, with violation of the ratio of technical and humanitarian, public and private, free and paid education; (d) the reasons for the current situation should also include the practical absence of the state status of career guidance of young people, the episodic nature of its implementation; lack of training of teachers and other practitioners of its implementation, and other circumstances.
The importance of overcoming these drawbacks actualized the need for new approaches to career-oriented work in the educational institutions to meet the needs of the labor market and educational and professional needs of young people. It is necessary to bear in mind the following facts: first, the world of professions is extremely dynamic and volatile; second, a specific feature of the modern world of professions is the fact that multi-professionalism is replacing mono-professionalism.
The integrative characteristics of career guidance, professional competence, and emotional (behavioral) flexibility (L.M. Mitin) are the object of professional development and the form of realization of the creative potential of individuals in their professional life. A feature of this approach is to consider professional selfidentity as a process of formation of a person’s attitude to himself/herself as to a subject of future professional activity, finding himself/herself in the images of
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professional world, which will help to prepare a person for possible future changes in occupation, adaptation to the changing conditions of life, and professional activity in a market economy environment.
In constructing the content of pedagogical support rendered to students for professional self-determination in lifelong education, we are guided by the methodological approaches: (a) socio-cultural approach, which allows us to identify the factors of influence of various social processes upon the social and professional self-determination of early adults, and factor the influence of social and professional self-determination for older teens upon public (including economic) processes; (b) the systemic-functional approach, allowing us to study the system (in this case - the content of training ) as part of a larger system (the process of school education) and to establish functional relationships between them; (c) the activity-based approach, allowing us to study changes in the characteristics of the process of social and professional self-determination, to fix changes in the attitude of a modern teenager to future professional activity.
The following approaches are crucial for the methodological foundation of the considered problem: (1) the existential approach, which considers a person as a self-creating object, as a “project of his/her own being”; (2) the axiological approach, associated with classifying a person and his/her development according to an ideal as a fundamental value; (3) the acmeological approach, which allows us to consider a professional ideal as an incentive and a motive for continuing professional development of an individual, and for an individual to reach the top of professionalism; (4) the systematic approach, allowing us to present the process of formation of professional self-determination as a pedagogical system that includes and takes into account the relationship of its elements (goals, ideas, subjects, objects, relations between them, environment, content, activities, resources, results) and allows you to use the potential of other approaches, including environmental, reflexive, and culturological ones.
The theoretical and methodological component of justification of pedagogical support has formed the basis for the design and content and methodical foundation of career guidance tools. Thus, the creative team under our supervision and N.F. developed and published a series of teaching and methodological kits for career guidance of students of 1st - 11th grades1. In developing these kits, special attention was given to their methodological component. The authors were guided by the fact that students should have competencies that are relevant to professional self-determination. They include: (a) willingness to anticipate and to plan their career guidance significant actions; (b) to act in society and in a working group; (c) to enter into communication with representatives of the social and cultural, and professional and work environment; (c) to resist manipulative influences; (d) to analyze and to interpret the content of general secondary education in the context of educational and professional routes (representatives of socio-cultural and professional and work environments, imaginary and real peers, one’s own itinerary), etc. The development of these competencies was carried out taking into account students’ age and psychological characteristics.
1 “Excursion into the world of professions (grades 1-4); “Who do I want to be” (grades 5-6); “Professional self-determination: choosing a plan of studies and a profession (grade 9) and others.
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The content of each training course does not provide students the predefined results and solutions regarding the choice of one’s occupation. It is focused on their inclusion into the creative productive activities aimed at searching for the meaning of professional work in the life of each human being, as well as at acquiring the initial experience in certain occupations which can serve as a basis for the future choice of one’s career. In accordance with the plan of the course, along with the reproductive techniques (a story, a conversation, an explanation), information retrieval techniques are used (problem discussion, heuristic conversation, debates, methods of organizing research activities, work with literary sources). Specialized and professional trials are used for the purpose of acquisition by schoolchildren of practical experience in the elected professional activities.
A person’s professional self-identity is provided for by the resources of career guidance. For the junior schoolchildren at the propaedeutic stage, it is necessary to actualize the problem of a conscientious attitude to work, understanding its role in the life of society, and to develop an interest in professional activities. For pupils of the 5th - 7th grades, who are at the searchprobing stage (characterized by the desire of children to be adults and be independent) it is important to encourage the desire to understand their interests, abilities, and values associated with understanding themselves in their future life, the life of adults.
Teenagers of the 8th - 9th grades need to be focused, during the period of development of their personal identity, on building their ability to balance their ideals (life, moral and professional) with their real capabilities, the demands of the labor market, and occupations consistent with the educational services market. The 10th - 11th grades are a period characterized by senior schoolchildren clarifying their way of continuing education and receiving a relevant profession. Conventionally, this period can be called the period of verifying social and professional status.
To improve the quality of career guidance in order to solve the problems of students as well as adults, it is appropriate: (a) to develop and implement a comprehensive program of research, including issues of personal, social and professional self-determination; (b) to increase the use of information sources and tools in the practice of career guidance of students; (c) to attract social partners in the practice of career guidance and make full use of their potential in the field of governmental structures, business entities and non-profit organizations; (d) to pay special attention to training of staff and career guides in the conditions of lifelong education, ensuring continuity at all age levels in preparation of children and youth for life and professional self-determination.
Thus, it is only possible to achieve effective results in addressing the problem of career guidance in an integrative, multi-faceted, complex and interdisciplinary task of national importance, under the condition of unification of efforts of the researchers and practitioners of various areas of scientific knowledge and representatives of governmental structures and business entities.
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References
1. Митина Л. М. Профессиональное и личностное самоопределение молодёжи: вчера, сегодня, завтра / Профессиональное и личностное самоопределение молодёжи в период социально-экономической стабилизации России: материалы Всерос. науч.-практ. конф. (Самара, 30 июня - 1 июля 2008 г.) Самара: Самар. Гуманит, 2008. - 264 с.
2. Родичев Н. Ф., Чистякова С. Н. Формирование профессионального самоопределения школьников в условиях непрерывного образования Педагогика. 2012. С. 16-24.
3. Чистякова С. Н., Родичев Н. Ф. Профессиональная ориентация: система и новые рубежи Профессиональное образование. Столица. 2012. № 12. С. 20-24.
4. Чистякова С. Н. Новые подходы к формированию профессионального самоопределения школьников в условиях непрерывного образования Школа и производство. - 2013. - № 1. - С. 9-12.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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