Vocational Choice: A Narrative Identity Approach Conceived from Cultural Psychology

Abstract

Vocation has been studied from perspectives such as trait-factor, differential psychology, and psychometrics. These perspectives have assumed it to be the precursor of a unique and definitive career choice, resulting from matching personal characteristics with the requirements of a job. Vocation has also been conceptualized as the product of evolutionary stages, dependent on maturational processes. However, the changing conditions of the contemporary world of work make it necessary to reconsider vocationality from a dynamic perspective that transcends the exclusively psychometric view. This article proposes an alternative approach to vocation, based on the processes of identity construction propose by cultural psychology. Thus, vocation is assumed as a process of a narrative nature, in constant formation, based on the symbolic resources with which people interact. Vocationality emerges as a historical, situated, and distributed phenomenon, marked by occupational and educational experiences, as well as by interactive experiences with significant others.