The Life Goals and Professional Preferences of Older Adolescents

ABSTRACT

The article analyzes the goals and life choices goals made by adolescents over a twenty-year period; presents the results of the author’s research with older urban adolescents (14–17 years of age) in the Republic of Bashkortostan; identifies the dynamics of specific life goals and professional orientations, as well as how gender affects professional preferences; describes the reproduction and dominance of traditional values; indicates the disparity between the intentions of adolescents and the demands of the labor market; and concludes by drawing attention to the importance of career guidance.

KEYWORDS:

• adolescents
• life goals
• national youth policy
• professional preferences
• young people

Notes

¹ Surveys were conducted in 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2010, and 2014 in the city of Ufa and six cities in the Republic of Bashkortostan, as well as one survey conducted in Moscow in 2014.