The joint actions of adolescents in peer conversations about career

Abstract

Ten career conversations between adolescent peers were video-taped to examine the joint actions of adolescents that emerge in actual conversations about career. Based on an action-theoretical approach, joint action refers to the intentional behavior of a group of people attempting to realize a common goal or engage in a common process. The actual conversations and the adolescents' recall of their thoughts and feelings during the conversations were used to identify the joint actions that occurred in the conversations and the meaning that the conversations had for the adolescents. Goals of the actions included educational planning, career selection, and personal future. The functions the adolescents undertook in the conversations to reach these goals were identified as exploring, formulating, validating, and challenging. Based on these results, it was proposed that self-refinement was the project that energized and guided the joint actions and lent meaning to the conversations.