Cecilo Del Valle

THEORETICAL MODELS AND DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOSOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL GUIDANCE PROGRAMS IN ARGENTINA

Diana AISENSON; Gabriela AISENSON; Fabián MONEDERO; Silvia BATLLE and Leandro LEGASPI

Introduction

Historically, Latin American countries have assimilated the psychological theories produced in developed countries. Academic tendencies and Guidance research are not an exception to this rule.

Original developments in our setting, however, are being produced on the basis of the interrelation among theoretical frameworks, issues arising in everyday practice and ongoing Guidance research. Our purpose is to construct models showing our own problem areas and the specificity of our social and cultural circumstances, so that we may define objectives and design involvement programs.

Generating original propositions does not mean disregarding certain universal principles or doing without existing theories that are acknowledged worldwide. They will be used in a referential and conceptual context and never as a complete theoretical model restricting our investigation. In other words, they will be used as a source of information enabling us to compare our conclusions and look for similarities and differences. If we consider that guidance practice objectives should be founded on certain conceptions or theoretical foundations (Guichard, 1997), these should in turn be the result of research that provides them with meaning and puts them in context according to the population involved.

Theoretical Outlook of Guidance in Argentina

Argentina is pioneer in the field of Occupational Guidance in Latin America. Its first institutions for the development of this discipline date back to 1925. From the start, Guidance has been related to Psychology. Initial practices were set in the framework of psychometric and psychological evaluations, using psychometric tests and subsequently projective tests. The most significant changes in practices coincided with the creation of the Psychology course of study offered at national universities in the late 1950’s, in concurrence with an important psychoanalytical development movement in Argentina that started in the 1940’s. This was a period of theoretical production based on psychodynamic approaches to guidance issues. New techniques and approach methods were developed for group and individual work: interviews, groups, guidance laboratories, etc. Work was begun at schools with students in their last stages of schooling. The main tools used for evaluating intelligence, skills, interests, values, and personality were translated and customized to suit the Argentine population. But to date, guidance programs or related public policies have not yet been systematically implemented in schools. The main developments followed two different directions. One with a clinical approach to guidance and consulting performed primarily in private institutions and hospitals, and another with a preventive, psycho-educational approach, mostly used in universities. As regards our group in particular, we will refer to the latter.

The faculty members of the Vocational and Occupational Guidance Department of the University of Buenos Aires School of Psychology carry on research, graduate and postgraduate teaching activities and provide community services since 1986. Within our theoretical outlook, we have included the connection of subjectivity issues with the social context obtaining greater psychological specificity in different propositions. Our multidisciplinary approach includes inputs from social psychology, preventive and community psychology, psychoanalysis, theoretical guidance and counseling models and sociology, among other disciplines. We propose the application of guidance practices in institutional, particularly educational, contexts and community settings by means of psycho-educational and psychosocial involvement. Group practices are favored on the basis of the theoretical prospects proceeding from group dynamics and social laboratories. Group work is combined -when resources are sufficient- with interviews and personal counseling

Our studies have enabled us to develop a line of investigation that considers the meanings given by subjects to the projects and career path they are building, the personal and social resources that are mobilized in transitional situations, the significant insertion that is achieved in different spheres –not only academic and labor-, and subjective identity building processes in a setting characterized by the economic impoverishment and social crisis of the population.

Unlike other countries, under our educational system, passing high school is the only requirement for admission to institutions of higher learning. The kind of methodology followed at school or a student’s academic achievement are not determining or restrictive factors for the furtherance of education. All high school graduates are eligible and "free" to choose any post-secondary course of study. However, hidden behind such apparent standardization, implicitly understood by the completion of a same educational level and the possession of a legally valid certificate, there is an assortment of very different educational paths that tend to reproduce initial social inequalities.

The following are the some of the most significant results obtained from studies carried out by the Research Team in Guidance Psychology on high school graduates and university students.

The building of career path in a prospective manner, focusing on transitions, was studied in the first group. We believe that the end of high school provides crucial support for the construction of future educational and labor projects. For this reason we have designed a follow-up methodology divided into short periods to study transition and its process. Questionnaires and interviews were prepared for three different periods: last year of high school (start of transition); one year after graduation (transition in progress) and three years later. At this time our purpose was to observe the insertions they had achieved and the characteristics of such insertions, the spheres in which they participate and the construction of their identities in different settings (educational, labor, social, family). A typology was established on the basis of projects as set forth by these youths when they finished high school (to study, to study and work, and to work) and their courses of development at college and at work. Attention was focused on those who achieved the insertion they valued –whether on the basis of their future intentions as set forth at the start of transition or changes made along the way- and those who did not.

Interviews were conducted with undergraduates at different stages of their education to evaluate the second group. In every case their

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