NewtonRCUKCONICYT School to higher education, work transitions and exclusion: Insight and learning from 4 countries in times of social reform in Chile

教育被认为是解决社会(地区)平等问题的关键驱动力之一，在低收入国家尤其如此。特别是在智利和其他拉丁美洲国家，需要加强现有的教育制度，为年轻人的社会流动和个人发展提供更好的机会。为了促进政策、实践和理论方面现有的争论，拟议的项目旨在比较研究四个不同国家(英国、智利、德国和芬兰)的青年获得教育和工作机会的情况，并在此侧重于他们首先从学校到大学/高等教育之间的过渡，其次是大学/高等教育与工作之间的过渡。计划中的多学科(教育学、社会学、心理学、管理学和组织学)、跨文化研究的结果预计将有助于加深对高等教育在智利教育改革时期在社会结构中的作用的了解，同时还将为其他三个国家和其他面临教育制度和平等挑战的国家的公共政策和实践提供信息，以及关于终身教育领域/阶段过渡的学术辩论。这四个具体国家被确定为研究的有趣案例，因为它们在与年轻人的教育、社会化和就业有关的关键方面(即社会平等、收入、文化、教育制度)存在很大差异。经过对现有文献的初步系统回顾，我们将采用混合方法设计来研究年轻人在生活中的关键时刻的转变，从三个数据来源对结果进行三角测量。具体地说，我们将进行一项量化调查，旨在从这四个国家的150名年轻人中收集混合样本的数据。调查将包括一些问题，重点是个人在中学和高等教育之间以及中学/高等教育和工作之间的过渡经历，以便更好地了解获得机会的机会以及大学和组织的招聘、遴选和支助机制的相互作用。它还将调查个人在心理结果方面的过渡经历，如他们的幸福感。为了深化调查结果，加深对调查问题的理解，我们还将在每个国家对政策制定者、教育当局和组织的代表以及已经经历过教育和工作过渡或目前正在经历这种生活变化的个人进行20次个人访谈。其中，我们试图通过这些访谈来探索个人的生活故事、公共政策和组织机制，从而深入了解包容/排斥机制所起的作用，以及个人、政府和地方机构如何给予或阻止平等机会。将从各国政府、智库和其他有关机构收集现有调查和统计数据等次要数据，以补充从数量和质量上收集的主要数据。除了寻求通过向政策制定者和教育当局代表提供对教育组织如何与社会结构和机会相关的更循证的理解来促进个人接受高等教育和就业市场的机会之外，拟议项目的发现预计将进一步有助于现有的学术辩论：我们的研究不仅将首次比较四个非常不同的国家的学校、大学和工作之间的过渡，我们还将研究被研究界忽视的具体过渡方面。

Education is considered to be one of the key drivers to addressing social (in)equality issues, especially in lower-income countries. In Chile and other Latin American countries specifically, existing educational systems need to be enhanced to provide better opportunities for the social mobility and personal development of young people. To contribute to the extant debates within policy, practice and theory, the proposed project aims at comparatively examining young people's access to educational and work opportunities in four different countries (UK, Chile, Germany and Finland), focusing hereby on their transitions firstly between school and university/higher education and secondly between university/higher education and the workplace. Findings of the planned multidisciplinary (education, sociology, psychology, management and organisation studies), cross-cultural research are expected to contribute to an enhanced understanding of the role higher education plays in the social structure in times of educational reforms in Chile, whilst also informing public policy and practice in the other three countries and further countries facing challenges relating to their educational system and equality, alongside the academic debate on life domain/stage transitions. The four specific countries have been identified as interesting cases for the research because they differ greatly on key dimensions (i.e., social equality, income, culture, educational systems) relating and/or relevant to the education, socialisation and work entry of young people. Following an initial systematic review of the extant literature, we will adopt a mixed methods design to examine young people's transitions at key points in their lives, triangulating findings from three sources of data. Specifically, we will carry out a quantitative survey, aiming to collect data from a mixed sample of 150 young people in each of the four countries. The survey will include questions focusing on individuals' experiences of transitions between secondary school and higher education, as well as between secondary school/higher education and work, in order to better understand the interplay of access to opportunities, as well as recruitment, selection and support mechanisms in universities and organisations. It will also investigate individuals' experiences of transitions in terms of psychological outcomes, such as their well-being. To deepen findings from the survey, and enhance understanding of the issues examined, we will further conduct 20 individual interviews per country with both policymakers, representatives of educational authorities and organisations, as well as individuals that have experienced already transitions between education and work or are going through such changes in their lives currently. Amongst others, we seek to explore individuals' life stories, public policy and organisational mechanisms through these interviews, aiming hereby to gain insight into the role played by inclusion/exclusion mechanisms and how individuals, governments and local agencies may grant or block equal access to opportunities. Secondary data, such as existing survey and statistical data, will be gathered from governments, think tank and other relevant bodies to supplement the primary data collected quantitatively and qualitatively. Aside from seeking to contribute to the improvement of individuals' access to higher education and job markets by providing a more evidence-based understanding of how educational organisations relate to social structures and opportunities to policy-makers and representatives of educational authorities, findings of the proposed project are further expected to contribute to existing academic debates: Not only will our study be the first to compare transitions between school, university and work across four very different countries, we will also examine specific transitional aspects that have been somewhat neglected by the research community.