Vocational narratives : how students make sense of their educational choices
Tarabini-Castellani, Aina (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Sociologia)
Rujas Martínez-Novillo, Javier (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
Gil Morales, Sara (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Sociologia)
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Grup de Recerca Globalització, Educació i Politiques Socials

Imprint:	SAGE, 2026
Description:	18 pàg.
Abstract:	This article explores how young people use vocational narratives to make sense of their Post16 educational choices. Based on 97 qualitative interviews with students from Barcelona and Madrid, the analysis examines the vocabularies of motive - such as personal fit, passion, interest, ability and future projection - that students use to legitimise their choices, revealing the symbolic hierarchies shaping these accounts. The study also analyses the timeframes employed in these narratives, illustrating how past experiences, present realities and future aspirations interweave to inform educational trajectories. By conceptualising vocation as a socially and historically produced repertoire rather than an inner inclination, the article explains how young people mobilise inherited cultural meanings within unequal fields of possibility. In doing so, it offers a relational approach that foregrounds the narrative practices through which aspiration, legitimacy and vocation are constructed, highlighting the dynamic interplay between habitus, social fields and the temporal structures organising students' trajectories.
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Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió acceptada per publicar
Subject:	Educational choices ; Narratives ; Social inequality ; Students ; Symbolic hierarchies ; Vocation
Published in:	Sociology, ISSN 1469-8684

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00380385261434874

Postprint 19 p, 561.8 KB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Social and Legal Sciences > Globalisation, Education and Social Policies (GEPS)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles