Ando na linha ou no desvio? um estudo sobre o processo de escolha e desenvolvimento de carreira pela perspectiva das instituições

Abstract

This dissertation aimed to understand how conventional and outsider career institutions influence the processes of choice and professional development. Presented in the format of articles/chapters, the first study aimed to determine how conventional and outsider careers are institutionalized in the light of the concept of institutions from Thorstein Veblen's institutionalist approach and Howard Becker's Theory of Deviance. The development of institutions in the original institutionalist approach demonstrates that instincts, habits, ways of thinking, repetition and legitimation lead to institutionalization, which is presented as a process conditioned by the logic of conformity to socially established norms. Deviance theory proposes that relationships between individuals produce rules and require compliance with them. The theoretical model demonstrates conventional and outsider careers as two career institutions, which are influenced by the type of interaction and social control experienced in the early stages of an individual's career. Based on this argument built in the first article, another theoretical study was proposed, in Chapter II, arguing that if individuals build career paths in the segregated institutional environment, there are different modalities and career phases from the perspective of the institutions. The second article aimed to re-present the typologies and career movements proposed by Schein, based on the legitimization of two distinct institutions – conventional careers and outsider careers. Thus, people would develop an exclusively conventional, exclusively outsider career, migrate between them or develop them simultaneously. The third and last chapter of the dissertation brings the empirical study that uses the models developed in articles one and two and aimed to determine which elements have the most impact on career development when choosing a conventional career, outsider, migrating between careers or developing dual career (conventional and outsider) simultaneously. The study was characterized as exploratory, qualitative, using thematic oral history as a method and the in-depth interview as a collection instrument, applied to five professionals who developed the typologies and career movements proposed in the model developed in Chapter II and subsequently analyzed by Pêcheux's discourse analysis technique. The main results show that the career institutionalization process takes place in the early stages of individuals' careers – confirming theoretical model I, that institutions exist and delimit social career structures – confirming the career movements proposed in model II. However, there is no linearity pattern in the career stages, since the influence of institutions is a conditioning factor in the construction of the professional path. The importance and relevance of agents were also identified, such as the relationship with parents, immersion in the culture and the development of thinking habits through social interaction that influence professional decisions, forming normative and coercive career patterns that originate the stigma and prejudice of outsider careers and approval for careers of prestige, status and stability, the so-called conventional careers. The legitimization process is decisive not only for belonging to social groups, it also creates a socio-cognitive relationship that gives the professional the confidence to maintain a career path, whether conventional or outsider. Conventional and outsider career institutions are maintained and reinforced through the process of emulation within social groups. Concluding that, the association of theories creates opportunities for a research agenda, because, viewing careers as institutions that delimit social career structures, there are possibilities of promoting comparative studies and associated with social markers of difference and other contemporary theories of studies of the theme.