Media and the Failures of Career Guidance: A Critical Response to the 2025 Figaro Article
The title of the Figaro article dated June 16, 2025 is revealing: “Students feel like they’re on a train they can’t get off.” This statement reflects not just a personal discomfort but a collective experience of being locked into a system, clearly confirmed by data from the OpinionWay survey. Among 1064 young people aged 18 to 24, 56% regretted their educational choices, 72% felt they had to decide too early, and only 38% said they were well prepared. These figures do not point to individual failures but to structural dysfunction. The problem lies not in how the decision is made, but in the conditions under which it is produced. And it is precisely this issue that Disassigned Orientation (2025) aims to formalize: a system in which career decisions are disconnected from any symbolic, relational, or experiential construction, and instead reduced to logistical assignments made in advance.
When sociologist Anne Muxel describes this “train you can’t get off,” she is pointing to an organizational mechanism more than a feeling. She adds: “By the end of ninth grade, adolescents are asked to make decisions. They feel their right to make mistakes is being taken from them at a time when they don’t have the tools.” This statement points to an orientation process that is not only premature but lacks any real room for trial and error. The system offers neither the time nor the conditions for young people to understand what they are choosing. The very idea of a right to trial—central to any learning process—is absent. The decision is framed as free but required at a stage where neither the criteria nor the implications are fully understood. This contradiction—between the demand for autonomy and the lack of a reflexive framework—is one of the key tensions at the heart of the current orientation model.
The emotional effects of this setup are significant. According to the Figaro article, the most common feeling when making the choice was anxiety (49%), ahead of excitement or curiosity (35%). And 45% said they were afraid of making a choice they wouldn’t like. These are not trivial data points: they show that orientation is experienced not as an opening but as a symbolic threat. This fear is not a product of personal indecision but of the system’s design. It is the absence of a structured and safe framework, the lack of space for doubt or the possibility of real reconfiguration, that turns choice into a source of distress. In Disassigned Orientation, this is described as the early closure of options. One does not choose a future; one selects a predefined track from a hierarchy of paths, with no prior experimentation and no real ability to shift direction later.
This hierarchy, while implicit in official documents, is clearly internalized by young people. The concern is not simply about choosing something one dislikes or being unsure. It is also about avoiding options perceived as low-status, or socially discrediting. Choices are shaped by an internalized status map, where some pathways are valued more than others regardless of personal interest or fit. What institutions present as a range of possibilities is in practice a rigid distribution of roles. This reinforces the symbolic weight of orientation as a form of classification, which Disassigned Orientation critiques as a modern mechanism of social sorting under the appearance of consent.
This early decision-making happens in a context of weak relational support. According to the article, only 38% felt well supported, and 59% said school guidance counselors were “not really helpful.” This confirms what the book highlights: the system has delegated the responsibility of orientation to figures who have been stripped of legitimacy and institutional weight. Orientation is no longer a shared, dialogical act—it becomes an isolated, individualized burden. The student faces serious, long-term consequences without any meaningful framework for reflection or critical mediation.
This withdrawal of institutional actors has led to another development: social media and search engines have become the dominant sources of guidance. The article notes that 82% of young people turned to the internet or social media to explore education and training options. This transfer of authority is fundamental. Orientation spaces are now filled with commercially structured content, isolated testimonials, viral rankings, and no critical analysis. What young people encounter are not spaces of understanding, but sets of trajectories that gain visibility through popularity and performance. As Disassigned Orientation explains, autonomy without mediation is abandonment. The problem isn’t lack of information—it’s the lack of a shared, structured process for making sense of it.
This newly dominant source of symbolic authority doesn’t just document—it validates. The content that circulates sets the standards for what is desirable, successful, or legitimate. Young people aren’t just looking for data—they’re seeking models they can identify with, figures whose trajectories confer recognition. This need for narrative and social validation is absent from institutional processes, yet it is essential. It is precisely because schools no longer offer plural, embodied narratives of professional development that young people turn to prepackaged online stories that reflect simplified or distorted ideals.
When institutional actors withdraw, algorithms and curated testimonials fill the space. By focusing on allocation and evaluation mechanisms, the school system has relinquished essential symbolic and educational functions. The resulting gap is filled by emotional, uncritical, performative formats. Young people do not find orientation in these channels, but a repetition of dominant professional ideals, framed as normal or desirable. In this context, the issue is no longer “helping to choose” but restoring the school’s capacity to support decision-making without prescribing it—to reopen possibilities, and to treat reversibility as a normal part of development.
At the end of the article, a frequently discussed solution is mentioned: allowing students to remain in a general education structure longer before narrowing into specialized tracks, similar to the U.S. model. This aligns with one of the central proposals in Disassigned Orientation: to create a transition period after compulsory schooling—not as a fallback, but as a formative stage of orientation. The goal isn’t to delay the decision, but to transform the conditions under which it is made. What the book describes as a “decision-making ecology” is crucial here: a space where one can try, adjust, reflect, and explore without symbolic or institutional penalties. Orientation would no longer be organized against error, but built with trial as a core developmental mechanism.
This transformation also requires a redefinition of educational roles. Adults must shift from being providers of answers or assignments to facilitators of reflective, narrative, and symbolic work. In the book, this is defined as the professional’s role as a “meaning operator.” This shift implies institutional recognition and support. The task is no longer to inform, but to co-construct. To make room for unformulated questions. To allow students to connect choices to emerging life stories.
Finally, the Figaro article indirectly confirms another major critique from Disassigned Orientation: the myth of error as a socially acceptable detour. While institutions may say that mistakes are recoverable, the data show lasting regret and little structural support for reorientation. Changing direction remains stigmatized, complicated, and marginalizing. It is not enough to proclaim the right to error—it must be made actionable. That requires a flexible system, acknowledgment of multiple timelines, reduced status barriers between paths, and a cultural shift toward trial-and-adjust as a legitimate model.
What the Figaro article ultimately illustrates is not just a need for technical reform but a systemic impasse. The problem is not speed—it is the structure itself, which allows no real alternatives. Orientation doesn’t need to be optimized; it needs to be redefined. Not as a selection process, but as a shared construction of meaningful futures. The issue isn’t that young people make the wrong choices. It’s that they’re pushed to commit to paths before they’ve had the right to explore.
What young people are asking for is not a better portal, not better job sheets or a more responsive counselor. They are asking for a framework that lets them not know right away. That allows them to explore without losing time. That lets them suspend decisions without being punished for it. What they need is not a more efficient tracking system. It’s the real, supported ability to design their own path.
Read my research paper here (in French) :
Vivier, P. (2025). L'orientation professionnelle désassignée (1ʳᵉ éd.). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15607008
