The joint actions of adolescents in peer conversations about career

Ten career conversations between adolescent peers were video-taped to exami ne the joint actions of adolescents that emerge in actual conversations abo ut career. Based on an action-theoretical. approach, joint action refers to the intentional behavior of a group of people attempting to realize a comm on goal or engage in a common process. The actual conversations and the ado lescents' recall of their thoughts and feelings during the conversations we re used to identify the joint actions that occurred in the conversations an d the meaning that the conversations had for the adolescents. Goals of the actions included educational planning, career selection, and personal futur e. The functions the adolescents undertook in the conversations to reach th ese goals were identified as exploring, formulating, validating, and challe nging. Based on these results, it was proposed that self-refinement was the project that energized and guided the joint actions and lent meaning to th e conversations. (C) 1999 The Association for Professionals in Services for Adolescents.