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（不）平等问题的关键驱动力之一，特别是在低收入国家。特别是在智利和其他拉丁美洲国家，现有的教育制度需要加强，以便为青年人的社会流动和个人发展提供更好的机会。为了促进政策、实践和理论方面的现有辩论，拟议的项目旨在比较研究四个不同国家（联合王国、智利、德国和芬兰）青年人获得教育和工作机会的情况，重点首先是他们在学校和大学/高等教育之间的过渡，其次是在大学/高等教育和工作场所之间的过渡。计划的多学科研究的结果在智利教育改革时期，跨文化研究（教育、社会学、心理学、管理和组织研究）将有助于加深对高等教育在社会结构中的作用的理解，同时也为其他三个国家以及面临教育制度和平等挑战的其他国家的公共政策和实践提供信息，与生命领域/阶段转换的学术辩论一起。这四个具体国家被确定为研究的有趣案例，因为它们在关键方面存在很大差异（即，社会平等、收入、文化、教育制度），与青年人的教育、社会化和就业有关。在对现存文献进行初步系统回顾后，我们将采用混合方法设计来研究年轻人在其生活关键点的转变，对来自三个数据来源的结果进行三角分析。具体而言，我们将开展一项定量调查，旨在从这四个国家中的每一个国家的150名年轻人的混合样本中收集数据。调查将包括侧重于个人从中学到高等教育以及从中学/高等教育到工作的过渡经历的问题，以便更好地了解获得机会以及大学和组织的招聘、选拔和支助机制之间的相互作用。它还将调查个人在心理结果方面的过渡经历，如他们的福祉。为了深化调查结果，加深对所研究问题的理解，我们将进一步在每个国家进行20次个人访谈，访谈对象包括政策制定者、教育当局和组织的代表，以及已经经历过教育和工作之间的过渡或目前正在经历这种生活变化的个人。除其他外，我们试图通过这些访谈探索个人的生活故事，公共政策和组织机制，旨在借此深入了解包容/排斥机制所发挥的作用，以及个人，政府和地方机构如何授予或阻止平等获得机会。次级数据，如现有的调查和统计数据，将从政府、智囊团和其他相关机构收集，以补充定量和定性收集的原始数据。除了通过向政策制定者和教育当局代表提供关于教育组织如何与社会结构和机会相关的更多基于证据的理解来促进个人获得高等教育和就业市场的机会之外，拟议项目的调查结果还将进一步促进现有的学术辩论：我们的研究不仅是第一个比较四个非常不同的国家的学校，大学和工作之间的过渡，我们还将研究一些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.