The teenagers' social yearnings

Abstract

These are the results from the 1^st stage of a research work carried out with an experimental population of 567 pupils finishing their secondary studies. Such results have been thoroughly examined for 20 years (1963-82), at the Lisbon Instituto de Orientação Profissional. The data analysis provided the following hypotheses: the professional interests of higher level represent the teenagers' social yearnings and they play a significant role as to their projects of life; those at an intermediate level express the social rules and values; at the lowest level, they correspond to social refusals. As to both boys and girls, the author established a disparity between the expressed social yearnings and the rules and values according to which work market and society are organised. Furthermore, she recognized a certain kind of compromise between the yearnings and the social rules. Such hypotheses enable her to start now the qualitative stage of her work, according to an in-depth analysis of individual cases.