Abstract
The world of work is undergoing changes, necessitating a new approach to guiding school students in their career choices by the government, society, and businesses. In recent years, numerous initiatives have been implemented to expand young people's exposure to various professions. However, there is still no clear nationwide plan for establishing partnerships between schools and representatives of the real economy in terms of vocational guidance. Today's youth require organised career guidance support because relying solely on the experience of parents and previous generations when choosing a profession is no longer sufficient. During the Soviet era, the state played a more significant role in ensuring the welfare and social protection of workers, while industrialisation provided universal career trajectories and clear guidelines on preferred professions and education. Today, individual human capital has become a crucial resource for social mobility and high-paying jobs, and the growth of the service sector and technological progress have elevated the demand for highly skilled labor rather than specific professions in certain economic sectors. The first part of the article focuses on reviewing important questions that need to be addressed when considering this issue. Is there a need for centralised efforts by society and the state to organise vocational guidance activities and assist teenagers in choosing a profession today? What is the transformation of the discourse on school vocational guidance in post-Soviet Russia? In the second part of the article, based on the results of a pilot study on the opinions of young men and women in Moscow, the embodiment of educational priorities in actual practice is analysed. The author concludes that the problem persists in the sense that school vocational guidance experiences are still unequal and strongly tied to pre-professional training, initially built on disparities in opportunities to explore professions, particularly in STEM fields.
Publisher
Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (FCTAS RAS)
Reference35 articles.
1. Anikin V. A. The social structure of the new Russia: experience in applying the a posteriori approach. Ekonomicheskaya sociologiya, 2022: 23: 3: 42–91 (in Russ.). DOI: 10.17323/1726-3247-2022-3-42-91; EDN: NIZKHW.
2. Ashin G. K. Elite education. Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennost', 2001: 5: 82–99 (in Russ.).
3. Bayborodova L. V. Accessibility of additional education for children in rural areas: problems and ways to solve them. Obrazovatelnaya panorama, 2018: 1: 9: 28–33 (in Russ.). EDN: YMQWLR.
4. Barabina I. A., Gafurova V. M. Polytechnic education in secondary schools of the USSR in the second half of the 1950s – early 1960s. Vestnik Udmurtskogo un-ta. Ser. Istoriya i Filologiya, 2016: 26: 4: 129–134 (in Russ.). EDN: WNCUHZ.
5. Vishnevskaya N. T., Zudina A. A. Economically vulnerable groups of youth in the OECD countries and Russia. Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 2018: 62: 11: 99–107 (in Russ.). DOI: 10.20542/0131-2227-2018-62-11-99-107; EDN: SLYCXV.