Some adolescents are treated as adults due to various circumstances like drug addiction, teen pregnancy, or a complex family situation... They go to workshop centers, such as the Puente la Reina Bridge Center or the Etxabakoitz School Workshop in Navarra, to integrate into the labor market at only 16 years old.

"It is fundamental that these adolescents at risk of social exclusion have a chance to cultivate their inner world to develop personally and reach maturity," says Sofía Brotons, a first-year doctoral student at the University of Navarra’s Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

In her thesis, Sofía intends to show how written narratives can help people achieve a more solid identity, improve self-knowledge and self-esteem. The doctoral student emphasizes that this work is especially important for young people at risk of social exclusion since adolescence determines personality.

Sofia admits that she has always known that she wanted to study writing, but she did not know how or with what tools. Her time in the Master of Social Science Research (MICS) helped her to define this topic and to learn the most appropriate methodologies to put her idea into practice.

"The program is very well organized and allows students to go through all the steps starting from the research question; it trains students to do a doctorate," she says. Now she has the opportunity to research with some of her former professors at ICS.

A research career

Since joining the Public Discourse team, Sofia has been able to immerse herself in research life: she has attended conferences, participated in workshops and collaborated on publications. "Research is a constant job and ICS gives you the opportunity to dedicate yourself to it exclusively," she stresses.

One of her first collaborations corresponds to the presentation she gave at the ICS International Workshop ‘Metaphor, Emotions, and Identity, which was dedicated to the study of metaphor. Her presentation was entitled, “Metaphor and self-knowledge in adolescent narratives.”

With her experience, she emphasizes to other doctoral students that doing a thesis does not just open doors for teaching at the university, but also can be the beginning of a research career. "In the MICS, students have the example of many professors who work full-time in research and they serve as guides if we decide to take up this professional path," she concludes.