Transitional education and the vulnerable actors between expulsion risks, promises and chances of salvation
No Thumbnail Available
Authors
Author (Corporation)
Publication date
27.06.2017
Typ of student thesis
Course of study
Collections
Type
06 - Presentation
Editors
Editor (Corporation)
Supervisor
Parent work
Special issue
DOI of the original publication
Link
Series
Series number
Volume
Issue / Number
Pages / Duration
Patent number
Publisher / Publishing institution
Place of publication / Event location
Fribourg
Edition
Version
Programming language
Assignee
Practice partner / Client
Abstract
Bridge-year courses, motivation semesters (SEMO), case management approaches, and internships are but a few examples of transitional education programs that are gaining ground in Switzerland. At the end of compulsory education, every fourth/fifth student is currently following such a program. Conceived in the late 1990s as a temporary, exceptional measure to mitigate unemployment among young people and/or the lack of vocational training possibilities, these programs seem set to stay, irrespective of any positive changes in the country’s economic circumstances. Some school-leavers apparently figure them in as part of their “career paths”. So far, the scientific community and public authorities have been focusing mainly on explaining the reasons why some students need such measures, whereas others do not (Bayard Walpen, 2013; Landert & Eberli, 2015; Sacchi & Meyer, 2016). However, little is known about the activities deployed by the actors themselves within the framework of transitional education programs (Heinimann, 2006; Scherrer & Künzli, 2013). Based on the grounded theory methods and on an actor-centered-approach and including over 60 interviews with students, teachers, principals, public authorities, employers and other actors, my dissertation addresses the following questions: 1. How do the actors experience and describe these transitional education programs? 2. How do the educational and professional trajectories of students evolve afterwards? 3. How to understand transitional education from a superordinate perspective? First findings suggest that the vulnerable participants in such transitional education programs might have a scapegoat function. As marginalized and marginalizing program, transitional education has to guarantee exclusions as well as to promise salvation through education. Both students, teaching and public authorities have to handle this paradoxical situation of an expected and de facto obligated but no equally guaranteed post-compulsory education in their own ways. Some students engage with the measure while others fail to thrive. All actors, however, need to constantly reassure themselves as to the reasons for their success or failure and thus to exculpate themselves. In this sense chances, promises and risks are close to each other and mutually dependent. We furthermore notice that state-school-based programs are facing increasing pressure to justify their very existence, while lobbying efforts for (semi-)private vocational programs (SEMO, private apprenticeship, internships) intensify. Apparently, transitional education – the weakest and vulnerable link of the Swiss educational system – is overly susceptible to (publicly subsidized) privatization, although there is no certainty as to who will profit from this the most.
Keywords
Private Education, Youth Studies, Sociology of Education
Subject (DDC)
370 - Erziehung, Schul- und Bildungswesen
Event
Kongress der Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Bildungsforschung (SGfB)
Exhibition start date
Exhibition end date
Conference start date
Conference end date
Date of the last check
ISBN
ISSN
Language
English
Created during FHNW affiliation
Yes
Strategic action fields FHNW
Publication status
Published
Review
Post-publication review
Open access category
License
Citation
PREITE, Luca, 2017. Transitional education and the vulnerable actors between expulsion risks, promises and chances of salvation. Kongress der Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Bildungsforschung (SGfB). Fribourg. 27 Juni 2017. Verfügbar unter: http://hdl.handle.net/11654/25129