The Development of the Problem of Professional Self-Determination of Personality in the 40-80s of the 20th Century

The article focuses attention on the problems of professional self-determination, which were relevant in the period of the 40s-80s of the 20th century. The author singles out and characterizes the main stages of the formation of the problem of professional self-determination of an individual in different historical periods of development, noting that the issue of defining an individual in terms of choosing a future profession has always been the object of research by philosophers, psychologists, pedagogues, and sociologists. For an optimal understanding of the essence of professional self-determination, the scientist suggests considering the specified category through a set of definitions such as professional orientation and self-determination. The author substantiates that, according to its purpose, the career guidance system has a significant impact on the rational distribution of labor resources, the choice of a young person's life path, his adaptation to the profession and the desire for self-improvement in it. Therefore, it is appropriate to characterize the process of development of professional orientation problems at various stages of historical development. When carrying out an analysis regarding the outline of the conceptual apparatus, the content side, principles, forms and methods of career guidance, presenting the stages of its organization for schoolchildren of different ages in one or another outlined period, the author makes a generalization that the search of scientists and practitioners to improve the preparation of schoolchildren for choosing a profession is not gave the desired results. The scientist emphasizes that in these years there is no clear, systematic coordination of scientific research in this direction, the desire to "adapt" the personality to the requirements of the profession prevails, the inability of schoolchildren to choose directions of professional development at the stage of school education is observed, there is spontaneity in the activities of practical workers in the implementation of tasks future professional choice. The researcher, using the example of ascertaining the main difficulties and determining the leading ways to solve the problems of professional self-determination of the student youth of that time, makes an attempt to generalize the available experience with the aim of using valuable ideas in the conditions of reforming the vocational education system in Ukraine.