Negotiation of occupational identity

The transition from school to vocational education and training is a focus of policy making and of academic research. However, for a long time little was known as to how young people in Switzerland experience training. Balancing the requirements of the world of work, the training conditions they encounter, and their own ideas and needs, they must develop strategies to assert themselves in everyday working life. This article thus shows how young people shape their occupational identity via resistance and distancing and by striving for autonomy rather than merely through adaptation. It also looks at the limits they encounter and at the roles played by the companies in this process.