Abstract
There is a growing demand for studies on the transition from school to work in Brazil. This comes at a time that there is an increase in enrollment for higher education and when there is a lack of skilled labor force in the country. However, many of the existing studies refer to empirical research, without considering some particularities of this transition process, such as socioeconomic specificities and the recent increase in access to higher education in Brazil. This article aims to discuss the concept of transition from school to work, integrated with other concepts such as social mobility and social class, based on Pierre Bourdieu’s and Jessé Souza’s theories. It is proposed that the transition from school to work starts to be seen as an important period for social mobility, taking into account the Brazilian historical and social singularities in its theoretical construction. Such understanding may contribute to the development of a Brazilian school-to-work transition theory, since it contains other elements besides qualification that interfere in this process, countering the discourse of individual meritocracy for entering the labor market.
Keywords:
Labor market; Transition school-to-work; Social class; Social Mobility; Young people