Our education list focuses on education policy and politics and the inequalities that are both built into education systems and perpetuated by them. It speaks to the UN Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education.
Our titles, including Stephen Ball’s The Education Debate, now in its fourth edition, address the challenges in education, including those around technology and the digital divide. The list offers students and researchers internationally sourced evidence-based solutions that challenge traditional neoliberal approaches to learning.
Education
You are looking at 101 - 110 of 1,175 items
Transitions to upper secondary education are crucial to understanding social inequalities. In most European countries, it is at this moment when students are separated into different tracks and faced with a ‘real choice’ in relation to their educational trajectory.
Based on a qualitative driven approach with multiple research techniques, including documentary analysis, questionnaires and over 100 interviews with policy makers, teachers and young people in Barcelona and Madrid, this book offers a holistic account of upper secondary educational transitions in urban contexts. Contributors explore the political, institutional and subjective dimensions of these transitions and the multiple mechanisms of inequality that traverse them.
Providing vital insights for policy and practice that are internationally relevant, this book will guarantee greater equity and social justice for young people regarding their educational trajectories and opportunities.
Educational transitions play a critical role in the (re)production of social inequalities. Transitions to upper secondary education are particularly significant as in most European countries this is when students are separated into different tracks – academic and vocational – and the first time they face a ‘real choice’ over their educational trajectory. Using a qualitative-driven approach that includes multiple research techniques (documentary analysis, questionnaires and interviews), the book offers a detailed account of upper secondary educational choices and transitions in two global European cities: Barcelona and Madrid. Contributors explore the political, institutional and subjective dimensions of these transitions and the multiple mechanisms of inequality that operate. The book examines the structure of the education system, the features of the academic-vocational divide and teachers’, policymakers’ and students’ practices and beliefs to provide a comprehensive understanding of the transition to upper secondary education. The book also shows how young people’s educational choices and opportunities are deeply mediated by the axes of social inequality (social class, gender and migration backgrounds) in multiple ways. Overall, the book provides a sound theoretical perspective and robust empirical evidence of how social inequalities are produced and extended by educational transitions to upper secondary level.
Educational transitions play a critical role in the (re)production of social inequalities. Transitions to upper secondary education are particularly significant as in most European countries this is when students are separated into different tracks – academic and vocational – and the first time they face a ‘real choice’ over their educational trajectory. Using a qualitative-driven approach that includes multiple research techniques (documentary analysis, questionnaires and interviews), the book offers a detailed account of upper secondary educational choices and transitions in two global European cities: Barcelona and Madrid. Contributors explore the political, institutional and subjective dimensions of these transitions and the multiple mechanisms of inequality that operate. The book examines the structure of the education system, the features of the academic-vocational divide and teachers’, policymakers’ and students’ practices and beliefs to provide a comprehensive understanding of the transition to upper secondary education. The book also shows how young people’s educational choices and opportunities are deeply mediated by the axes of social inequality (social class, gender and migration backgrounds) in multiple ways. Overall, the book provides a sound theoretical perspective and robust empirical evidence of how social inequalities are produced and extended by educational transitions to upper secondary level.
This chapter analyses the ways in which young people’s discourses about their upper secondary educational transitions are representative of the hermeneutical injustice, understood as young people’s misunderstanding of their own social experiences. Based on rich qualitative narratives of students in Madrid, the chapter identifies the weight they attribute to structural factors and to their own agency in explaining their upper secondary choices. Results of the analysis demonstrate that, overall, young people’s discourses reflect the denial of any habitus and the understanding of their own choices and transitions as the result of their will and/or individual capability. The chapter contributes to the understanding of educational transitions showing the lack of young people’s awareness of the structural and institutional factors that condition their choices and trajectories. That denial condemns them to a disadvantageous position owing to their inability to deal with constraints that they don’t even identify.
The objective of this chapter is to provide a sociological understanding of vocation by exploring its association with the notion of choice. It explores how secondary school teachers understand the concept of vocation, and the factors they relate to the making of young people’s vocations and related educational transitions and choices. By a comparative analysis of teachers’ interviews in Barcelona and Madrid, the chapter shows that the notion of vocation is not equally mobilised by teachers in different upper secondary education tracks, and not all the choices are seen as equally ‘vocational’. ‘In the name of vocations’ teachers hierarchise and legitimise profoundly different students’ capacities, identities and choices. Overall, the chapter contributes to understanding the institutional making of educational transitions and to opening the black box of vocation as a critical mechanism for the (re)reproduction of social inequalities through the making of educational choices.
Educational transitions play a critical role in the (re)production of social inequalities. Transitions to upper secondary education are particularly significant as in most European countries this is when students are separated into different tracks – academic and vocational – and the first time they face a ‘real choice’ over their educational trajectory. Using a qualitative-driven approach that includes multiple research techniques (documentary analysis, questionnaires and interviews), the book offers a detailed account of upper secondary educational choices and transitions in two global European cities: Barcelona and Madrid. Contributors explore the political, institutional and subjective dimensions of these transitions and the multiple mechanisms of inequality that operate. The book examines the structure of the education system, the features of the academic-vocational divide and teachers’, policymakers’ and students’ practices and beliefs to provide a comprehensive understanding of the transition to upper secondary education. The book also shows how young people’s educational choices and opportunities are deeply mediated by the axes of social inequality (social class, gender and migration backgrounds) in multiple ways. Overall, the book provides a sound theoretical perspective and robust empirical evidence of how social inequalities are produced and extended by educational transitions to upper secondary level.
This chapter focuses on the political construction of upper secondary educational transitions by comparing the problematisation of and the solutions proposed by policymakers and educational stakeholders in Barcelona and Madrid. By means of critical policy analysis and sociology of education policy, this chapter highlights the dynamic and conflicting nature of the upper secondary field and the frictions related to its functions, institutional organisation and different forms of provision. Results demonstrate the subordination of the vocational track to the academic one both in discursive and institutional terms. It also proves a strong problematisation of VET in terms of a naturalised conception of the labour market and the skills demand. Overall, the chapter demonstrates the political nature of educational transitions by highlighting the multiple inequalities that traverse the conception, organisation and provision of the upper secondary educational tracks and also the political and institutional mechanisms that legitimise them.
This chapter inquires into the notion of learner identity by exploring how it is shaped and reconstructed within upper secondary vocational settings. Based on in-depth interviews with Vocational Education and Training (VET) students in Barcelona, the analysis shows that most of them have based their upper secondary choice upon a highly damaged identity as ‘proper’ learners. This identity, however, is challenged under particular institutional and relational conditions and can be modified over time. The learning cultures of VET, and particularly their pedagogical and curricular ethos, are highlighted by young people as critical in re-signifying their identities as learners. Of special importance is the recognition of practical knowledge, allowing students to revise their own notions of ability, capability and self. Overall, the chapter contributes to advancing the sociological study of learner identities and their critical role in producing and understanding educational choices and transitions.
Educational transitions play a critical role in the (re)production of social inequalities. Transitions to upper secondary education are particularly significant as in most European countries this is when students are separated into different tracks – academic and vocational – and the first time they face a ‘real choice’ over their educational trajectory. Using a qualitative-driven approach that includes multiple research techniques (documentary analysis, questionnaires and interviews), the book offers a detailed account of upper secondary educational choices and transitions in two global European cities: Barcelona and Madrid. Contributors explore the political, institutional and subjective dimensions of these transitions and the multiple mechanisms of inequality that operate. The book examines the structure of the education system, the features of the academic-vocational divide and teachers’, policymakers’ and students’ practices and beliefs to provide a comprehensive understanding of the transition to upper secondary education. The book also shows how young people’s educational choices and opportunities are deeply mediated by the axes of social inequality (social class, gender and migration backgrounds) in multiple ways. Overall, the book provides a sound theoretical perspective and robust empirical evidence of how social inequalities are produced and extended by educational transitions to upper secondary level.
The final chapter of the book provides a holistic account of the multiple ways social and educational inequalities traverse educational choices and transitions. By articulating the macro, meso and micro levels of analysis that inform the book, and by combining the empirical results of the previous chapters, this concluding chapter critically identifies and analyses five main mechanisms of inequality (structural, systemic, institutional, relational and subjective) that in a clearly interrelated manner mediate the framing, enactment and experiences of upper secondary educational choices and transitions. The identification of these mechanisms represents a significant contribution in the theorising of the relationships between educational transitions and social inequalities that it is suitable to be applied in multiple national and institutional contexts as well as in different transition points within the education system and beyond.
