BETWEEN UNIVERSITY AND THE WORLD OF EMPLOYMENT. TRANSITIONS IN THE NARRATION OF POLISH AND SPANISH STUDENTS

Abstract

The authors of this article present a part of the study done under the project research EMPLOY which advocates fostering employability of non-traditional students through improving the effectiveness of transition from university to labor market. The article presents partial findings of narrative surveys taking into account the perspective of non-traditional Spanish and Polish students in a comparative manner. The authors while interpreting the findings used mainly the concept of transition in lifelong learning.
In the transition of both Spanish and Polish non-traditional students one can identify the attempts to assess pragmatically opportunities and resources of the environment with regard to future employment. These are a certain modus operandi and individual paths based on the expectation system of normative nature.
The findings indicate that transitions do not exclusively refer to relocation between different institutional contexts and learning environments but largely they mean ‘becoming’ (someone), therefore individual factors and perpetration play as important role as external social structures.