Educação para o trabalho e desenvolvimento vocacional: contributos para uma metodologia de Job Shadowing

Abstract

Vocational guidance as an approach with several participants and alongside with the school curriculum capable of endorsing a set of conditions in which young people are placed in relationship with the world and where they can be exposed to experiences and carry out learning that can influence their personal development has been advocated throughout recent years. In this framework, job shadowing emerges as a powerful tool for direct vocational exploration supporting the differentiation of the young vocational identity by transforming their relationship with the world, while reflecting about both past and present commitments. It also provides direct experiences of learning and the opportunity to give them meaning while aiming a broader awareness of their vocational interests. In this paper, we intend to combine the assumptions of the Reconstructive Exploration of Vocational Commitment Model, and the Experiential Learning Model in a strategic device that is organized around Kolb´s cycle of four learning processes (concrete experience, reflexive observation, abstract conceptualization and active experimentation) by seeking to promote in young people the interactive knowledge of themselves in/and of the world and, consequently, the transformation of their commitments (current and / or past) adjusting them both to reality and to their personal needs and desires.