Resumen

MESSINA RAIMONDI, Graciela. Teenagers who get their certificate from Mexican technical secondary school: A career path study. Perfiles educativos [online]. 2013, vol.35, n.141, pp.46-64. ISSN 0185-2698.

This article is about the life paths of teenagers who obtain their certificate in technical secondary schools and come from low income social sectors, and also about their opinion about this educational model. It results from a qualitative research that tried to find the sense of technical secondary school from the traces the school left in the young people who get their certificate. 32 adolescents from an urban environment were interviewed, connected by the educational institutions themselves. The results of the study show that the techn ical secondary education does not necessarily allow for thepeople who obtain a diploma to keep studyingin higher technical studies (high school or university). The possibility to keep studying is observed only in specific conditions, above all when there is a family anchor (a father or a member of thefamily who has aformaljob). In this sense, the early technological training offered by the technical secondary education does not define necessarily the paths, nor it reduces the subject's freedom to choose it, although it conditions in some way their horizons. The possibility to keep studying at high school or university emerges as a distinguishingfac-tor for the teenagers who obtained their certificate, when taking into account also phenomena as social condition and gender.

Palabras llave : Teenagers; Technical secondary education; Career paths; Education and jobs.