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Educational systems with a high level of tracking and vocational orientation have been shown to improve the allocation of school-leavers in the labor market. However, tracked educational systems are also known to increase inequality of educational opportunity. This presumed trade-off between equality and labor market preparation is clearly rooted in two different perspectives on the origin of differentiation in educational systems, dating back to the nineteenth century. Tracking was seen both as a way to prepare students for an industrializing labor market and as a way for the elite to formalize social distances in the educational system. We empirically study the trade-off with newly developed country-level indicators for tracking and vocational orientation. Our country-level regressions largely support the existence of the trade-off between labor market allocation and equality of opportunity.

Studies of care workers frequently reveal relatively high levels of job satisfaction despite poor employment conditions. The rewarding nature of care work, altruistic motivations and gendered social norms have all been used to explain why subjective job satisfaction is high despite poor pay and terms and conditions. Using data collected in case-study research with domiciliary and residential care workers, this article offers a new direction for care worker research that contextualizes the taken-for-granted assumption that care workers tolerate poor pay and conditions because women find the work satisfying and intrinsically rewarding. The article draws on cultural analyses of class to offer an alternative framework that identifies the wider social processes that can shape care workers’ job satisfaction.

School leavers with low educational attainment face great difficulties in their school-to-work transitions. They are, however, quite heterogeneous in terms of their personal and social resources. These within-group differences may influence who shows initiative during the school-to-work transition period and thereby helps employers recognize their learning potential at labor market entry. Yet this recognition also depends on the ways employers select applicants, which may prevent them from discovering such within-group differences. We therefore investigate the interplay between agency and its constraints, that is, whether higher cognitive and noncognitive skills and more parental resources provide low-achieving school leavers with new opportunities in the school-to-work transition period or whether their low school attainment causes the persistency of their disadvantages. We use panel data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), which started in grade 9. The NEPS also includes school leavers from special-needs schools. Our sample consists of 3417 low-achieving adolescents (42% female), defined as adolescents who leave school with no or only a lower secondary school-leaving certificate. Their average school-leaving age is 16 to 17 years. Our key findings are that the transition period opens up new opportunities only for those low-achieving adolescents with better vocational orientation and higher career aspirations, leading them to make stronger application efforts. The success of youth’s initiative varies considerably by school-leaving certificate and school type but not by competences, noncognitive characteristics, and parental background. Thus, the label of “having low qualifications” is a major obstacle in this transition period—especially for the least educated subgroup. Their poor school attainment strongly disadvantages them when accessing the required training to become economically independent and hence in their general transition to adulthood. Our results are also of interest internationally, because participation in firm-based training programs functions as the entry labor market in Germany. Thus, similar explanations may apply to low-achieving adolescents’ difficulties in finding a job.

Purpose: During the last decade, new continuing learning pathways have been designed and implemented in the Dutch Vocational Education and Training (VET) column aiming to foster students' transitions between successive educational levels. Prototypical examples of such continuing learning pathways are the Green Lyceum (GL) and the Technical Talent Development programme (TTD). In the present exploratory study, GL and TTD were compared in terms of curriculum design aspects and students' acquired VET diplomas and transitions to higher VET levels. Methods: Ten curriculum design aspects of GL and TTD were described through curriculum description forms and focus group discussions to be able to determine similarities and differences between both learning trajectories. Moreover, acquisition of VET diplomas and transitions to higher VET levels of students from both programmes were compared. Findings: The ultimate goal of GL was to promote student transitions to higher professional bachelor (HBO) programmes while TTD mainly intended to increase student numbers in the technical domain at the secondary VET level. For GL, a new and integrated VET curriculum was built with specific ingredients to prepare students for the HBO level. For TTD, the contents of the regular VET programmes were roof tile stacked in an accelerated curriculum with a stronger focus on vocation-oriented assignments in the technical domain. Conclusion: If the ultimate goal of a continuing learning pathway is to promote students' transitions to higher VET levels, curriculum design aspects as represented in GL seem more effective. However, if the focus is on promoting students' diploma acquisition at lower VET levels for specific sectors, curriculum design aspects as represented in TTD seem more effective.

Transitions between schools, vocational education and training (VET), and work pose important challenges for young people that influence their well‐being and social positioning now and in the future. The young people themselves experience the transition phase as the formation stage of their aspirations and goals. In this process, young people are confronted with the expectations and assessments of relevant others—such as parents, teachers, employers, and career counsellors—and by the requirements that are defined in sociopolitical and institutional contexts. In these contexts, criteria of successful transitions and risky transitions worthy of special support are made relevant. German and Austrian employment-centred transition regimes are characterised by relatively high standardisation and segregation as well as a strong VET system linked to the labour market. This thematic issue brings together contributions that examine challenges in these transitions from different perspectives and related facets of social inequality. The articles address different transitions (mostly school‐to‐VET, but also school‐to‐school or unemployment to work) and their different phases: aspiration formation, changing aspirations, challenges in transitions, and concrete problems in transition processes like disconnectedness or unemployment. The articles on social inequalities are related to class, ethnicity, gender, and (dis)ability. We also place importance on balancing different methods to bring together findings from quantitative surveys, qualitative interviews, and participatory research.

Im Rahmen der Beruflichen Orientierung an Schulen stellen Potenzialanalysen ein zentrales Instrument dar. Programmatisch grenzen sich diese von schulischem Lernen ab und den Jugendlichen soll in diesem Zuge stärkenorientiert begegnet werden. Anhand ethnografischer Befunde zeigt der Beitrag, wie Jugendliche innerhalb des Verfahrens dennoch auf unterschiedliche Weise in der Präsentation eigener Stärken behindert werden können, und reflektiert hiervon ausgehende Implikationen für die Praxis. (DIPF/Orig.) Competency assessments are central to school-based vocational guidance. They claim to be different from school-based learning and young people should be approached in a strengths-oriented manner. Using ethnographic findings, the article shows how young people can nevertheless be disabled in different ways in presenting their own strengths within the process and reflects on implications for practice. (DIPF/Orig.)

Das Budget für Ausbildung fördert die berufliche Ausbildung von Menschen mit Behinderungen als Alternative zur Werkstatt für behinderte Menschen. Zentrale Elemente sind die Erstattung der Ausbildungsvergütung an den Arbeitgeber sowie die Anleitung und Begleitung am Arbeitsplatz. Bislang ist die Nutzung gering. Eine explorative Studie weist auf Einflussfaktoren der Inanspruchnahme hin. (DIPF/Orig.) The vocational education budget promotes vocational education for people with disabilities as an alternative to sheltered workshops. Key elements are the reimbursement of training salary to employers as well as guidance and support in the workplace. So far, usage is low. An explorative study points to factors influencing its use. (DIPF/Orig.)

Der Bericht thematisiert die unzureichende Datenlage zu jungen Menschen mit Behinderungen beim Übergang von der Schule in den Arbeitsmarkt. Er stellt relevante Datenquellen vor, diskutiert deren Potenzial für die Übergangsforschung und unterbreitet schließlich Vorschläge für eine bessere Erfassung der Zielgruppe in künftigen BA/BIBB/IAB-Bewerberbefragungen. (DIPF/Orig.) The report addresses the insufficient data available on young people with disabilities in the transition from school to work. It presents relevant data sources, discusses their potential for transition research and, finally, suggests adaptations in future BA/BIBB/IAB-applicant surveys to better identify the target group. (DIPF/Orig.)

We illuminate the socio‐cultural embeddedness of adolescents to explain gender‐typical occupational orientations (GTOO) from an intersectional perspective. We investigate whether and why immigrant and native youths differ in their GTOO. These issues are of practical and political importance, as deviations from the norm of the autochthonous majority society can drive change in the gender segregation of the labor market on the one hand but can also lead to difficulties in accessing training and work on the other. We use cross‐sectional data on ninth‐graders from the German National Educational Panel Study, which allows us to analyze distinct dimensions of GTOO, i.e., expectations and aspirations. The results of step‐wise multilevel models show that (a) differences in GTOO between immigrant and native youths apply to certain countries of origin—particularly females from Turkey, the country with the strongest contrast to the German context in terms of gender‐related labor market characteristics, differ in their aspirations from native females—and (b) differences between immigrant and native German expectations shrink with immigrant generation and after controlling for aspirations. This indicates that assimilation processes involving socialization‐related adaptation to the host society play a greater role than an increase in information about its labor market.