The transition from initial vocational training to the world of work: the case of art school students

This contribution is based on a recently finished study. It gives an important place to the empirical dimension and proposes the analysis of two life-paths in the artistic field set against a broader analysis of the whole of the corpus produced as part of this research. The methods of analysis are situated at the intersection of the narrative and the sociological fields. This contribution examines the passage from initial training to the world of work. It reconstructs the ordeal represented by this passage and shows the way this ordeal fissures identity and human agency. It conceptualises in particular the possible links between identity and agency and the social environment. It then proposes an analysis of the process of bifurcation. The failure of intended artistic projects gives way to a bifurcation. The analysis locates this process at the intersection of self-improvement and the search for social roots. Bifurcation gives way to the emergence of a new polarisation of action and to the reconstruction of a new system of networking with the environment. This contribution looks back at the whole of the analysis through the spectrum of low human agency.