Abstract:

Education is conceived as a permanent process in the development of any person, it is a process that also allows the life trajectories of each one to take more value and diversify, defining the uniqueness of each person. Throughout the development of this process, the individual or educating is considered an active being, with initiative, but which in turn, is subject to internal and external influences. Among the aforementioned influences, the role of educational agents stands out: the individual involved and the educational personnel (teachers, counselors, pedagogues, etc.), but also the family, the media, and other people of reference, whether they are television idols or people from the learner's environment. After the end of mandatory education, the learner must make decisions that determine the future development of their educational process and, in many cases, their professional career. These decisions depend on some schemes and conceptions that lead to the making of one or another decision and that are not independent of the context of the social structure in which the individual is immersed.

The objectives of this research are to delve into the moment in which the student exceeds the mandatory educational stage (in Spain –2020–: Mandatory Secondary Education) or reaches 16 years of age (age at which they can no longer be forced to remain in school a person) and must make decisions regarding their educational process. Deepening the decision-making process through which the student chooses his or her path to continue with the educational process of oneself once they have passed mandatory education (or the minimum age to abandon it). Specifically, you want to know how the decision-making was carried out, what educational scenario has prevailed, which socializing agents the student recognizes as key in making the decision, what was his idea or goal of improvement (what purpose was pursuing with that decision) and what learnings or goals you have achieved to date. To achieve these objectives, several people born between 1990 and 1995, male and female, have been interviewed through semi-structured interviews that have been recorded with the express consent of the participants.

Among the most relevant conclusions derived from this study, stands out the fact that the interviewees guide their choices during the end of Mandatory Secondary Education and the next educational level, thinking about university and obtaining a university degree as the ultimate goal or final goal to aspire to. The fact of going to university is not questioned or meditated, according to the interviewees, it is an immovable and assumed question, both by the students interviewed and by their relatives, especially the parents; Other options to continue the educational process and focus on the student's future employment, such as Vocational Training, are not equally valued. In addition, we want to highlight the utilitarian conception of post-mandatory education that has been perceived in the interviewees, contrary to that which predominates among professionals in the Education Sciences, since the people interviewed conceive education as a means to achieve a position of work and not as an end in itself.

Keywords:

Mandatory education, orientation, educational settings, educational agents, decision-making.