Education as a way of labor and social empowerment of university students in Mexico

Abstract

Education is the strategic axis to activate the economic and cultural transformation of nations, promote the quality of life of society and the connection of people with the world of work. Investing individually and socially in education, generates benefits of macro-social, microsocial and personal profitability. In this way, the personal and collective future is linked to the educational process and to the formation of critical people who can intervene in the improvement of their social reality (Díaz Domínguez & Alemán, 2008). Education, and especially higher education, prepares citizens for life, generating high individual and collective expectations, to build a better social environment (Soto & Torres, 2016). With an optimal level of education, young people contribute to the national economy and reduce the social inequality gap (OECD/CEPAL/CAF, 2016). From this perspective, the Institutions of Higher Education are committed to society to strengthen the binomial quality-relevance. All of the above is for Mexican youth to have the professional profile demanded by the challenges and expectations of the social reality. Against this background, the approach is: Does university education contribute to the social and labor empowerment of Mexican youth? For this study four educational centers of the University of Guadalajara, from different regions of the State of Jalisco, Mexico, have been considered. This work seeks to analyze the reliability and validity of the evaluation carried out, with an instrument aimed at finding out about the work and social environment of the students who graduate from the University of Guadalajara. Analyzes of internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) and factorial (structural validity) have been developed. The results highlight the most relevant factors in relation to the development of competences during their formative trajectory and, at the same time, endorse the use of the instrument to evaluate strategic lines aimed at strengthening the academic curricula of the university centers under study. The conclusions show how the university education received trains graduates for social empowerment and, to a lesser extent, for labor and economic empowerment.