Contributing to the construction of the vocational identity of Mahoran high school pupils with intellectual disabilities: Professional accessibility in question
We study how young people with disabilities in Mayotte (France) build a professional identity. Three theoretical frameworks are articulated : the accessibility of training aiming at developing a professional identity, the vocational identity construction of teenagers, and cultural contacts. Interviews were conducted with nine pupils in the Unité Localisée d'Inclusion Scolaire (Localized Unit for School Inclusion) in high school. Notes of their activities were recorded for two students during an observation period in work placement. Results indicate that the discovery of the professional environment is conditioned by the geographical and social accessibility of the nearby jobs. Vocational choices are globally determined. Tensions appear between determinism and emancipation from the experiential relationship of guidance by close relatives. Finally, the co-construction of exchanges in the interview allows young people to develop multiple forms of psychological adaptations in their construction of time. The conclusion concerns the accessibility (making accessible) of training in order to include the young person in a professional orientation. The research methodology is questioned as an object "co-constructing situations of disability" (Beldame and Silvestri, 2021) making it difficult to evaluate the construction of the professional identity of young people already recognized as having a disability in a plurilingual context.