Vocational orientation and transitions – integration into vocational education and work

Vocational education and training can make an important contribution to the societal participation of individuals by facilitating stable and secure routes into working life. Nevertheless, the pathway to career entry involves various transitions. Each of these encompasses opportunities as well as inherent risks and uncertainties for the person concerned. Young people are also required to make various training and occupational decisions at each separate stage of the process. Such decisions go on to exert a short-term effect on the transitional procedure, yet may also have long-term consequences for further education and career pathways and for quality of life and life satisfaction. However, the extent to which career entry is successful is not solely due to individual decisions and endeavours. Histories, transitions, orientations and decisions also largely tend to be the outcome of a complex interplay between institutional, social and individual factors.

This topic cluster investigates the interaction of institutional, social and individual factors at various stages along the route into working life. The topic cluster examines the educational and vocational orientation of young people, their education and career decisions, reorientations, participation in education and training and education and training histories as well as looking at possible interruptions to the educational and training biographies of individuals. The focus is on vocational education and training. The aims are to understand individual (re)orientations and decisions in the context of alterations to general institutional conditions and to identify mechanisms and factors that lead to successful transitions.

Consideration is also given to groups of persons particularly affected by inequality.

Sample key questions

• How are young people’s career choice processes and occupational decisions shaped within the context of social and institutional changes, and what influences these processes and decisions?
• What is the impact of occupational choice on access opportunities to vocational education and training?
• How are young people’s transitions to, participation in and integration into vocational education and training reflected by regional and occupational disparities, and which success factors can be identified?
• To what extent are individual and social factors and general economic conditions in particular correlated with (occupational) reorientation by young people and with interruptions to the course of vocational education and training?
• To what extent can patterns of unemployment and of overqualification or precarious employment be recognised within the career entry phase? Which success factors can be identified for the transition to working life?
• Which differences in opportunity and risk and which indications of social inequality can be observed at the relevant transitions? Are there displacement effects between groups?

Publications

Bibliography

Events

• Cooperation between the BIBB - FeMINT research project and UNESCO/UNEVOC on the topic of “Gender equality in STEM-related TVET” (project concluded)
• Cooperation between the BIBB research project on “Educational orientations and decisions of young people within the context of competing educational and training provision” and the Technical University of Darmstadt, Department of Vocational Pedagogy and Vocational Education and Training Research, within the scope of a joint study entitled “BIBB/TU DA Vocational Orientation Study”.