Forner, Yann <br/><br/>
L'indécision de carrière des adolescents 

 -  2007.<br/>							 
<br/><br/> 21 
<br/><br/> RÉSUMÉ L’évolution des conceptions fondamentales de l’indécision professionnelle – ou indécision de carrière  – est d’abord résumée : conceptions dichotomiques, développementales, cognitives et multifactorielles. Puis sont présentés quelques outils d’évaluation typiques qui ont permis des recherches plus fondamentales sur l’identité, les différences interculturelles et les effets des pratiques d’aide à l’orientation. L’avenir de l’indécision est enfin évoqué par son possible avatar, l’incertitude.  ADOLESCENTS’ CAREER INDECISION Indecision, i.e. the inhability of a person to make a choice when encouraged to, is an irritating state for the researcher who wishes to explain it, as for the expert who wishes to reduce it. Career indecision relates to the incapacity to decide about a major or a vocation. Career choices are worked out in two large frames of reference : family and school, the effects of which are pointed out. Various designs have been built, all of which cannot be set out : especially, strictly clinical approaches or those related to career decisions of adults engaged in the world of work. Indecision is often approached in a dichotomic, almost administrative, way by the opposition of decided/undecided people. Studies about the frequency of indecision (lack of choice) and contrasts between decided/undecided adolescents appeared rather disappointing. During adolescence, indeed, indecision doesn’t often mean lack of career choice, but indicates a period of development of this choice. In the developmental approaches of decisions, some adolescents make choices rather quickly (and, therefore, are said decided ) and others more slowly (and are said undecided ). However, either quickly or slowly, some adolescents do not manage to decide : two forms have been distinguished : a developmental, normal indecision, and another form, more problematic and marked by a strong anxiety, chronic indecision. Not decided adolescents are thus not a homogeneous group, some are undecided and others indecisive  ; they would use different processes. These processes have been studied within the framework of the Cognitive Information Processing, where decision is considered as an application of several mechanisms, the dysfunction of the one of them being sufficient to create an undecided state. The location of these mechanisms is supposed to allow a reduction of indecision – which is not always true. Factors of indecision are, indeed, numerous and have been described in multifactorial approaches. A differential diagnosis of indecision is necessary for understanding the state of a person ; this diagnosis makes it possible to assess the role of different factors (as lack of information or lack of decision method). These last approaches require precise data and adapted tools have been then elaborated ; some – among most typical – are presented. With these tools, more fundamental problems have been examined as the question of identity, intercultural differences and guidance practices assessment. The assessment of these practices may be located among a whole of researches in France, from which one relates to college students : it is for an average indecision at the beginning of college ( « university » ) that the later scores of examinations are highest. The idea of an optimum of indecision is then taken up in a more general way : according to situations, an amount of indecision is adaptive and the current evolution of the world of work seems to indicate that indecision – which becomes a perceived uncertainty  – could increasingly become more efficient because it leaves the person free for adapting to the modifications of the world.