Career guidance and socio-economic situation in Argentina.

Abstract

ABSTRACT

This work points out the circumstances in which, from its very beginning, professional guidance in Argentina has been specially characterized by taking into account the particular social situation of the individuals and populations to whom the specific practice was directed. In fact, professional guidance in this country was basically related to the detection of certain individual factors and its relation to specific labour abilities, within a context in which social matters’ related factors were considered as a main axe to the future developing of the whole guidance process. In Argentina, during the last decades, social exclusion due to increasingly poverty index, the lack of opportunities, the unemployment and a low educational level, have introduced hard new conditions into careers advice. Even though this process has always considered social and economical matters, the high level structural complexity of current situation means new and hard challenges in the guidance task. This paper analyzes the central role of careers advisers’ commitment to socio‐economical circumstances of the individuals and population to whom the task is directed, and the importance of social responsibility involved through these circumstances. This responsibility is also supported in Argentina, not only by local ethics codes, but by professional international guidance competences as well.