Opportunity, equality and agency in England's new VET landscape: a longitudinal study of post-16 transitions

这项为期5年的研究将调查英国的职业教育和培训（VET）系统如何更好地支持50%没有上大学的年轻人从学校到工作的过渡。这些年轻人继续接受教育、培训和就业的道路往往具有复杂性、不稳定性、前景不确定和辍学的特点。在18-24岁的年轻人中，约有13%的人没有接受任何形式的教育、就业或培训。这项研究将集中在16-20岁年龄组，并将特别强调与年轻人本身的观点接触，包括那些被边缘化的人，他们的意见在政策制定中往往得不到倾听。这些年轻人更有可能落在系统的差距之间，无法接受教育、就业或培训，这与一系列负面结果和终身成本有关。这项研究将比较生活在不同地方的年轻人的机会，以及他们能够利用的资源，以帮助他们做出和实践有意义的职业和就业选择。它将探讨年轻人的价值观、资源丰富的年轻人在转型过程中的不同经历，以及对平等、政策和专业实践的影响。这项研究的指导原则是，为了使转型更加公平，我们需要充分参与：平等的不同层面和在实践中实现平等的挑战；年轻人所经历的各种优势和劣势的组合，包括那些在职业教育培训研究中经常被忽视的优势和劣势，例如与性取向、性别认同、残疾、学术成就和地方有关的优势和劣势，以及与阶级、“种族”和性别有关的优势和劣势；以及可能的机会范围如何与年轻人的生活经历、价值观和能动性相互作用。该项目将对学生目的地进行国家级统计分析，并对约1.7万名年轻人进行纵向调查，以确定谁获得了哪些机会，并提供年轻人的价值观、愿望和发展轨迹的大规模地图。深度研究包括对四个不同地方政府的政策制定者、从业人员、年轻人及其父母/照顾者的500次定性访谈，将提供更详细的见解，以阐明定量研究结果。在项目结束时，我们将召集国际VET学者，为我们的研究结果带来跨国比较见解。这项研究将与主要利益攸关方共同开展。通过帮助政策制定者更深入地了解年轻人的生活和观点，并支持思考如何最好地管理同时解决不同类型不平等所涉及的紧张关系，这项研究将有助于确保政策对年轻人经历和不平等的复杂性更加敏感；因此，更有可能成功地创造更容易驾驭和公平的过渡。该项目还将帮助建立有效利用研究成果为政策和实践发展提供信息的能力，帮助年轻人发展他们的宣传技能，并产生两个重要的新数据集，这些数据集将对其他团队未来的大量研究有价值。由于英国目前正在对其职业教育教育体系进行根本性改革，该研究解决了紧迫的国家政策优先事项。对平等和生产力的相关担忧加剧了这些问题，特别是教育和技能水平上的差异，这些差异可能会阻止来自弱势地区的人、被归类为黑人或少数民族的人、以及妇女和残疾人获得高技能就业。这个项目将对这些差异是如何产生的以及如何减少这些差异提供新的理解。在此过程中，它将产生与政府的平等和生产力议程至关重要的见解。

This 5-year study will investigate how England's vocational education and training (VET) system can better support the school-to-work transitions of the 50% of young people who do not go to university. Routes into further education, training and employment for these young people are often characterised by complexity, instability, uncertain prospects and drop-out. Around 13% of 18-24 year olds are not in any form of education, employment or training. The research will focus on the 16-20 age group and will have a particular emphasis on engaging with the perspectives of young people themselves, including those who are marginalised and whose input is often not heard in policymaking. These young people are more likely to fall between gaps in the system and not be in education, employment or training, which is associated with a range of negative outcomes and lifetime costs. The research will compare the opportunities for young people living in different places and the resources they are able to draw on to help them make and exercise meaningful career and employment choices. It will explore young people's values, how differently resourced young people experience their transitions and the implications for equality, policy and professional practice.The research is guided by the principle that, to make transitions more equitable, we need to fully engage with: different dimensions of equality and the challenges of realising equality in practice; combinations of different kinds of advantages and disadvantages experienced by young people, including those often neglected in VET research, e.g. those associated with sexuality, gender identity, disability, academic attainment and place, alongside those of class, 'race' and gender; and how the range of possible opportunities interacts with young people's life experiences, values and agency. The project will use national-level statistical analysis of student destinations and a longitudinal survey of c.17,000 young people to establish who is getting access to which opportunities and provide a large-scale mapping of young people's values, aspirations and trajectories. In-depth research consisting of 500 qualitative interviews with policymakers, practitioners, young people and their parents/carers across four contrasting local authorities will provide more detailed insights to elucidate the quantitative findings. Towards the end of the project we will convene international VET scholars to bring cross-national comparative insights to bear on our findings.The research will be co-produced with key stakeholders. By helping policymakers develop greater insight into young people's lives and perspectives and supporting reflection on how the tensions involved in simultaneously addressing different kinds of inequality might best be managed, the research will help ensure that policy is more sensitive to the complexity of both young people's experiences and inequality; and hence more likely to be successful in creating more navigable and equitable transitions. The project will also help build capacity in the effective use of research to inform policy and practice development, help young people develop their advocacy skills and produce two major new datasets that will be of value for substantial future research by other teams. The research addresses pressing national policy priorities as England is currently engaged in fundamental reforms to its VET system. These have been fuelled by linked concerns about equality and productivity, in particular the disparities in education and skill levels that can prevent those from disadvantaged regions, those categorised as black or minority ethnic, as well as women and disabled people from accessing high-skill employment. This project will provide new understandings of how these disparities are produced and how they might be reduced. In doing so, it will generate insights of critical relevance to the government's equality and productivity agendas.