“Doing disabled transitions - Organizational barriers in the transition from "school to work”

The project addresses the accessibility of vocational education and training from a life course perspective. Despite human rights obligations to ensure inclusive education and access to vocational training (Articles 24 and 27 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UN CRPD), young people with disabilities are severely disadvantaged when transitioning to the training and labor market. The starting point for the project is empirical evidence that unequal participation does not only arise when training places are allocated, but is already institutionally initiated during the preparation and organization of the transition from school to work, which begins during school years, including the welfare state's decision on the promotion of vocational training. The institutionalized creation of difference by organizations along disability categories in conjunction with other lines of difference plays a significant role in this. Therefore, the creation and attribution of ‘disability’ as well as the related allocation and placement processes at the level of school and welfare state actors in the transition from school to work and their interaction are being examined. The focus is on (1) initiating transitions in the course of school career guidance, (2) planning transitions at the end of school, and (3) welfare state support for vocational training and employment. Guideline-based expert interviews are conducted with relevant actors from school and welfare state organizations who have specific gatekeeper functions in the transition process, and these interviews are evaluated using content analysis. By contrasting two study regions with different school systems and school inclusion rates, the project takes into account varying contextual conditions for preparing and shaping career transitions in the context of disability. Through the integrated analysis of transition areas that are often considered separately in research, the project contributes to understanding the extent to which vocational training and employment opportunities in the standard system are opened up or closed off by the interaction of different organizational actors in the context of disability in the course of transition preparation and design. This helps to reveal how ‘disability’ is not an individual characteristic, but rather the result of organizational structures, processes, and practices, and how it becomes relevant for long-term opportunities for vocational participation. Existing research perspectives on vocational training and disability, which consider construction processes at the micro level of social interaction, are complemented by a focus on the meso level of organizational action, systematically incorporating cultural, economic, legal, and temporal-situational social contexts.