The Vocational Aspirations of Students in the Period of the Systemic Transformation

Abstract

The author focuses on the changing vocational aspirations of students in the period decadence, break and the starting of the systemic transformation, comparing the results of the studies conducted currently and over the eighties. These issues are discussed against the information concerning the students’ attitude toward the transformations in Poland. The systemic transformations, and the economic transformation in particular, are perceived by students rather as creating new opportunities than threatening. Students are more and more frequently convinced that the social rank of education, qualification, initiative, and entrepreneurship will increase. The eventual successful life and professional career, according to the students, will be determined by meritoric reasons: high vocational qualifications, the level of general education and the issues depending on themselves: initiative, entrepreneurship, honest, reliable work. The approval for the changes and more and more distinctive feeling of one’s subjectivity are significantly related to the changes, with recently, just in the period of transformations, took place in the area of preferred educational and vocational strategies. The students, in their future jobs, want to be autonomous and selfreliant. The aspiration for autonomy seems to be of special importance and value, from the point of view of the eventual possibility of influencing the direction of the transformation in Poland, by young and educated people.