Vocational counseling and the aspiration of achieving a university admission of students with a migratory background in The United States, Latin America, and South Europe. A systematic literature review

Abstract

There is limited research that considers students with migratory background cultural characteristics within vocational counseling processes in high schools of the United States, Latin America, and South Europe. A systematic literature review was made, guided by the question: In young migrants and second-generation migrants, how vocational counseling influences the achievement of being admitted into a university, comparing their life trajectories during secondary and high school?

A total of ten articles, out of three hundred eleven initially found, were selected based on a protocol for the literature review (available on request). All these articles belong to the United States context. One also considered the Spain reality. Based on the protocol used, neither another Southern Europe article, nor any article on the Latin American context was selected. All the analyzed articles pointed up the central role of counseling processes regarding students’ vocational decisions. Nonetheless, there is not much attention to counseling processes given to students with a migratory background and their specific needs. Among others, this fact reveals one of the failures of the system in giving post-secondary opportunities to these students. Limitations and recommendations to improve the vocational counseling processes and their influence on the achievement of admission into a university for these students are presented. Besides, some gender differences and the transcendental role of families in the vocational decisions of students are analyzed within the literature review.