Girls' academic and career interests when finishing compulsory education

This paper is about an exploratory study of girls' academic and career interests when finishing compulsory education. Previous similar studies have shown girls tendency to choose careers in which they have to look after and to take care of other people. Since the end of XIX century, teaching and nursing have been professions for women. So that, one of our aims has been to explore if this situation has already changed. In that case we would like to know which are the young women new careers interests. We have also asked them about their academic interests,these data have been checked with their mothers and fathers professional qualification level. We selected a quote sample procedure. 291 girls, from six localities around Huelva city,coursing the fourth grade of Secondary Education, were implied in this study. 243 mothers or fathers also participated. To collect data we carried out structured interviews, with particular questions guides for different objectives and subjects. To analyze data we used both quantitative and qualitative methods, depending on their nature. Data pointed out that almost one part of three of them is going to study a 'Ciclo Formativo', the two other parts prefer to study 'Bachillerato'. Three careers are the most chosen (almost the 50 %), they are related to medicine/nursing, teaching and secretary. Other results that let us go deeper in this inquiry are also included, they are about which specific jobs they would like to do, and which are their reasons. Findings show that there are differences between girls' elections depending on the city they are living. It is remarkable that the original situation about girls professional interests has not changed a lot, but they emphasized they want to do further studies, and this is a great advance if we compare with their mothers academic lives.