Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Transitions to post-compulsory education are a key element in understanding educational and social inequalities. The choice of post-compulsory education is mediated by patterns of social inequality, as well as by school trajectories and previous educational experiences. Based on this framework, this article aims at understanding how school trajectories of young people in the compulsory education help to explain their choices about post-compulsory itinerary. Beyond an analysis that incorporates the descriptive factors of school trajectories – such as grade retention or youngsters’ academic performance – the analysis also incorporates the experiences of young people at school. In doing so, we used the data from a questionnaire carried out during the 2018-2019 academic year to N= 1,318 young people in their first post-compulsory education course. We carried out a factorial analysis and a subsequent cluster analysis, which resulted in the construction of four types of school trajectories: the «good students», the «hard-working», the «misbehaved» and the «displaced». Results show how these school trajectories, mediated by social origin, influence post-compulsory choices. The article highlights the importance of the school career and provides new evidence for the demystification of the existing rhetoric about “free choice” in the transition to post-compulsory studies. 

Despite the fact that in recent year in Argentina the access of female students to Vocational Technical Education has gradually expanded, in the modality there are still important gender inequalities. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the initial motivations and future expec- tations of students attending Professional Technical Education and their relationship with the persistence –or with the transformation– of stereotypes about gender differences in the labor market. The methodological approach was quantitative and qualitative. The data wereconstructed from surveys and focus groups with male and female students from Technical Secondary Schools and Vocational Training Courses in two regions of the country. The results show signi- ficant differences between both territories analyzed and, within these, between men and women. In spite of the policies for gender equality and the visibility of the various discriminations that women suffer due to the multiple feminist mobilizations in recent times in Argentina, gender stereotypes that legitimize inequalities persist.

The Early leaving from education and training (ELET) affects one in five young people between ages of 18 and 24 (Eurostat, 2019), with significant differences by sex and social class, and even greater by national origin. This article analyzes the impact of social class and origin in the key factors of school (dis)engagement as well as the relevance of the processes of school and local accompaniment in educational transitions. This work is part of one of the two spin-offs carried out in the municipalities of Sabadell and El Prat de Llobregat from the FP7 project Reducing Early School Leaving in Europe (RESL.eu, 2013-2018), focusing on data obtained in the latter. In addition to confirming differences by social class and national origin, our results underline the impact that guidance and counselling practices have on these students in schools and in out-of-school local resources and their articulation with school engagement to promote transitions to post-compulsory education stages. 

The factors influencing young people choices in their transitions from compulsory to post-compulsory education have been widely addressed. The convergence between structural factors and agency in school transitions has been proved. However, these results do not necessarily reflect their awareness of these determining factors, as well as the extent in which they consider themselves affected. Miranda Fricker (2017) claims that when a breach in the collective interpreting resources makes one or some individuals be in a disadvantageous position regarding their understandings of their own social experiences, a case of hermeneutical injustices is taking place. This paper, through the analysis of 29 interviews carried out with students of baccalaureate and intermediate vocational training belonging to four schools placed in Madrid city, aims to analyze to what extent the students’ discourses about their transitions are representative of this kind of injustice. Results display the existence of structural differences in the trajectories followed by students from baccalaureate and intermediate vocational training, specified in their smooth or discontinuous character; however, young people discourses reflect, on the one hand, the denial of any habitus, and, on the other, the understanding of their own choices and transitions as the result of their will and/or individual capability, placing the responsibility of the choices and their consequences on the individuals. 

Upper Vocational Education in Spain remains as a poorly developed and prestigious training path, despite the significant progress made in recent years. Its levels of supply and demand are much lower than those of the Academic path -the Baccalaureate. In addition, in global terms, VET courses enrol a much higher percentage of working class’ students as well as young people with trajectories of school failure. The objective of this article is to analyse how VET students construct their identity as learners based on their educational experiences – both past and present – and their projections for the future. The analysis develops a qualitative methodology based on 42 in-depth interviews with students in the first course of upper secondary VET in Barcelona. The results show, on the one hand, that the learner identity of VET students is constructed upon on a mostly negative experience of compulsory schooling. This, in turn, is grounded on a public conception of them as bad students. On the other hand, it proves the emergence of processes of identity ressignificance when they enrol in VET, based on the recognition and dignifying of the practical knowledge that articulates the teaching and learning cultures of this training path. In whole, the article contributes to advancing to the study of learner identities as a key element in understanding educational inequalities. 

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