Life goals and professional preferences of older adolescents

Life goals and professional preferences of older adolescents


Selivanova Z.K.

Cand. Sci. (Sociol.), Аssoc. Prof., The National Research University «Moscow Power Engineering Institute», Moscow, Russia zoi75@bk.ru

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For citation:

Selivanova Z.K. Life goals and professional preferences of older adolescents. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2017. No 5. P. 51-56




Abstract

The article presents the results of a series of sociological studies conducted by the author in the cities of the Republic of Bashkortostan in 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2010, 2014 years. In 2014, for comparison, a survey was made of about 300 students in secondary schools of the city of Moscow. The object of the study was urban older adolescents (14–17 years). The article presents detailed data on dynamics of preferences in the choice of life goals and professional orientations. There are differences by gender in the choice of professions, the lack of differences in the distribution of respondents‘ views on the place of residence and nationality, the absence of differences in preferences of adolescents in the cities and the capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan. We observed no differences for most items and the presence of very weak differences only for some items preferences of teenagers Bashkortostan from the goals of adolescents in Moscow. It is revealed that urban teenagers throughout the research period are dominated by healthy traditional values and life goals. So, on the first places in the ranking of goals in life are answers “to have a good profession and to have a nice family, children, find a big love,” “to have a lot of friends.” Only in recent years the position strengthened of the answers to open business enterprise” (2014: 4th place in the rating) and “to become strong and independent” (in 2014 5th place in the rating). The goal “to have an apartment, a lot of things, a car”; “have a lot of money”, is also experiencing fluctuations in the range of 20–40% in the long twenty-year period. At the same time teenagers are attracted by more and more creative activities in art, science; this desire has grown over the years, starting with the 12th place in the ranking in 1993 to 9th place in 2014. Percentage of Teens that see their goals as is to “fight evil, for justice” (6 to 10% in different years) remains stable. However, very chaotic and prone to random factors, far from objective social needs are personal preferences experiencing, in addition, serious dynamics by years, among boys and girls who want to be an entrepreneur, businessman. Interest for the profession of engineer, designer, completely lost, is just beginning. All this confirms the need for targeted public career guidance and directed work on the formation and forecasting of the labour market.


Keywords
youth; older adolescents; life goals; personal preferences; the state youth policy

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Content No 5, 2017