The vocation: a religious concept installed in professional formation

Abstract

Vocation is a polysemous term and common in the literature on professional formation. However, conceptual definitions are lacking and it is customary to declare a religious origin. The objective of this work was to deepen in the religious origin of the term vocation and to warn the implication of its use in the studies on the professions. Intersecting the pragmatics of Wittgenstenian and the historical hermeneutical method, different uses of the term vocation in the Christian religion were reviewed. Also, it was described how the vocation reached the pedagogical discourse in the first centuries of the Christian era when Clement of Alexandria used it as an evangelizing resource before the Hellenization discourse. Finally, a lay explanation of the vocation, based on choice and working life, is proposed as a tale of professional ethical self-realization (Nicol, 1961).