Conference Agenda

VET systems play a crucial role in equipping young people with labour‑market relevant skills, yet European countries differ in system design, participation patterns and outcomes (OECD, 2023). Research on VET policy transfer remains fragmented and dominated by single‑country studies with limited methodological diversity (Ciantar, 2025). The symposium responds to this gap through cross‑national mapping of VET transition and participation patterns and policy repertoires.

This symposium brings together research teams from Denmark, Estonia, Croatia, Scotland, and Spain participating in the EU‑Horizon funded VETprep project. All papers begin with national VET policy analyses but extend their lens to a wider ecology of situations—including institutional practices, socio‑economic conditions, professional understandings, and young people’s lived experiences.

Comparing VET systems is analytically demanding (Czycholl, 1971). As Steiner‑Khamsi (2010) has argued, the logics and purposes of comparison have shifted over time, and King (1965) already underscored that meaningful comparison must move beyond structural inventories towards an analysis of the ecology of situation. Recent comparative VET scholarship proposes multi‑dimensional frameworks that foreground labour‑market structures, governance arrangements, competence models, and educational logics (Clarke, Westerhuis & Winch, 2021). Work on VET policy transfer likewise shows how comparison is intertwined with processes of translation and contextual adaptation (Barabasch, Bohlinger & Wolf, 2026). These are complementary: whereas Steiner‑Khamsi’s work on travelling reforms highlights how policy ideas circulate and are recontextualised rather than simply copied (2023), multi‑dimensional VET frameworks help specify which system dimensions matter when such reforms meet national centexts. Our symposium adopts both vantage points: we anchor each paper in national policy analysis while tracing how policies are enacted, negotiated, and experienced within a broader ecologies of situation.

Across the five countries, the symposium explores three shared dimensions: VET attractiveness, transitions into VET, and participation and retention. All teams used a common document‑analysis approach (Torraco, 2016), and a common coding scheme for identifying policy intentions, target groups, measures and available evidence. This enables both cross‑national comparability and sensitivity to national and regional particularities. Two papers address additionally the interconnected roles of social background and psychosocial factors in student transitions and educational expectations from a cross-national and cross-time perspective, tapping into possibilities of policy interventions for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

While the shared framework creates a coherent foundation, each contribution adds a distinctive analytical angle. Denmark examines how national VET policy repertoires are translated and enacted across different organisational and pedagogical ecologies, showing how policy intentions materialise, shift, or dissolve as they move from policy texts into school and workplace practice. Scotland shows how the effectiveness of the most significant policy efforts of the Scottish Government to expand VET participation in the last fifteen years have been severely tamed down by the low public commitment and weak institutional coordination of its liberal skill regime. Estonia combines policy analysis with qualitative interviews, illuminating how vocational school staff and students in need of support perceive and enact support measures, with particular attention to vulnerability and student agency. Spain examines how recent VET policy reforms aimed at enhancing attractiveness, structuring transitions and promoting participation and inclusion are enacted and experienced by students. Combining national policy analysis with qualitative interviews, the paper explores how policy intentions are translated into educational trajectories. Croatia links policy analysis to OECD PISA data to investigate transitions, inequalities and aspiration patterns from a cross-national and cross-time perspective, widening the scope to populations of 15-year-olds within EU-28 perspective.

Together, the contributions offer a multi‑layered picture of policymaking and policy enactment. Three themes cut across the papers: cross‑national convergence/divergence in policy solutions; the centrality of vulnerability and equity; and the alignment (or misalignment) between policy intentions and outcomes.

Debates about the possibility of institutional change in VET systems have been largely influenced by historical institutionalist perspectives (Busemeyer and Trampush, 2012), which suggest little possibility for policy transfer and learning across regimes due to institutional inertia and interlocking complementarities between the economy, labour market and state’s role in education (Busemeyer and Schlicht-Schmälzle, 2024). Several studies at national and sub-national level have challenged this determinist assumption by investigating cross-regimes variations in VET (Vossiek, 2018), as well as small-scale experiences of VET governance that deviate from country classifications (Valiente and Quepsada-Munsech, 2021). We investigate how the Scottish Government (SG) has adopted and implemented several policy reforms to overcome some of the coordination limitations of the liberal model of skill formation and expand participation levels in VET. Scottish VET policy in Scotland has purposely differentiatedn from the market-led model of skill formation established in England over the years. The Scottish Government approach to VET has been characterized by a greater coordinator role of the state in the provision of VET through its agencies (i.e. SFC, SDS, SQA) and the aspiration of making the contribution of VET to economic growth compatible with the aim of social justice. The Global Financial Crisis marked a period of intense VET policy reform that crystalised in a seven-year plan Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) (2014–2021). This aimed to expand school leaver’s participation in VET through greater collaboration between schools, colleges and employers in the provision of VET, particularly through work-based learning. As part of the VETPrep study, we systematize existing publicly available evidence on the implementation and impact of three SG policy initiatives from this period directed to increase the attractiveness of VET (DYW Regional Groups), support the transition to VET (Foundation Apprenticeships), and prevent dropouts in VET (Care Experienced FE Student Bursary). The review of evidence suggests a great deal of small scale of institutional changes that do not scale up due to the lack of public commitment and institutional coordination mechanisms in VET. Despite these structural barriers, the higher uptake of vocational qualifications in schools in the recent years suggests that possibilities for change are much larger than it was previously indicated by the literature.

Busemeyer, M. R., & Trampusch, C. (2012). The political economy of collective skill formation. Oxford University Press. Busemeyer, M. R., & Schlicht-Schmälzle, R. (2014). Partisan power, economic coordination and variations in vocational training systems in Europe. European Journal of Industrial Relations, 20(1), 55–71. Doyle, L., & Wang, G. (2022). Strengthening precarity? A critical analysis of education and training programmes in the UK (Scotland). Education + Training, 65(1), 74–87. Keep, E. (2017). English exceptionalism re-visited: Divergent skill strategies across England and Scotland. Journal of Education and Work, 30(7), 741–749. Minty, S., & Vertigans, S. (2021). Accessing Robert Gordon University: The experiences of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. RGU Aberdeen. Reeve, F. (2020). Inequalities in access to further and higher education. In Exploring Childhood and Youth. London: Routledge. Valiente, O., Lowden, K., & Capsada-Munsech, Q. (2019). Lifelong learning policies for vulnerable young adults in post-recession Scotland. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 0(0), 1–16. Valiente, O., & Capsada-Munsech, Q. (2021). Regional governance of skill supply and demand: Implications for youth transitions (R. Bürgi & P. Gonon, Eds; No. 20; pp. 303–330). Peter Lang. Vossiek, J. (2018). Collective Skill Formation in Liberal Market Economies? Peter Lang.

Professional development is a lifelong process shaped by both personal characteristics and environmental influences. In adolescence, students are required to choose educational pathways that significantly affect their future career opportunities. The importance of structured and systematic career development has been widely acknowledged in policy frameworks (OECD, 2025). Early socio-cognitive models explaining the relationship between academic and career choices and performance (Lent et al., 1994) have evolved into contemporary approaches that focus on students’ values, attitudes, and expectations within their social environments, including family, peers, and schools (Neuenschwander & Kracke, 2011). This paper aims to contribute to current knowledge on educational transitions and aspirations and examine how VET students’ psychosocial factors differentiate between VET tracks and contribute to explaining educational aspirations. The study is based on an analysis of OECD PISA 2022 data (OECD, 2023, 2024). Croatia is one of the countries with highest coverage in vocational education; the majority of upper-secondary students are enrolled in VET programs (cca. 70%). Most students attend VET programs that enable entry into the labour market but also the continuation of education, resulting in a highly heterogeneous sample in relation to socio-economic status and educational aspirations. Using multivariate logistic regressions we examined student profiles by upper-secondary program. Enrolment in VET programmes without access to tertiary education is primarily predicted by lower socioeconomic status, male gender, lower educational and job aspirations, weaker academic achievement, and higher levels of information seeking, perseverance, stress resistance, and lower cooperation. Enrolment in VET programmes that allow labour market entry or educational progression is associated with lower socioeconomic status, higher educational aspirations, lower academic achievement, lower assertiveness, reduced family support, and weaker student–teacher relationships. With multivariate linear regressions we examined aspirations by upper-secondary program. Socioeconomic status emerged as the only consistent predictor of educational aspirations across both VET groups. Additionally, female gender, job prestige, and achievement were significantly related to aspirations in VET programmes enabling educational continuation or labour market entry. To explore system inequity, we tested how various psychological factors moderate relationships between SES and aspirations for students in VET programmes enabling educational continuation or labour market entry. Information seeking, family pressure, assertiveness, and curiosity were significant moderators, attenuating this association among students scoring higher on these characteristics. Overall, the findings highlight the need for systemic policy interventions that strengthen student characteristics capable of mitigating socioeconomic disadvantage and promoting greater educational equity.

Lent, R. W., Brown, S. D., & Hackett, G. (1994). Toward a unifying social cognitive theory of career and academic interest, choice, and performance. Journal of vocational behavior, 45(1), 79-122. OECD (2025), The State of Global Teenage Career Preparation, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/d5f8e3f2-en. Neuenschwander, M., & Kracke, B. (2011). Career development.In: B. Bradford Brown and Mitchell J. Prinstein, editors. Encyclopedia of Adolescence, Vol. 1. San Diego: Academic Press; 2011. pp. 97-105 OECD (2023). PISA 2022 Assessment and Analytical Framework. OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2023/08/pisa-2022-assessment-and-analytical-framework_a124aec8/dfe0bf9c-en.pdf OECD (2024), PISA 2022 Technical Report, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/01820d6d-en

In recent years, VET has gained importance within the Spanish education system due to growth in enrolment and its normative and social recognition as a pathway for qualification, employability and social inclusion (Brunet & Moral, 2017; Martínez-Morales & Marhuenda-Fluixà, 2020). Historically perceived as a secondary pathway linked to segregation or school failure (Merino, 2005), subsequent reforms attempted to reverse this situation through the organisation of VET into training cycles; nevertheless, they did not fully succeed in eliminating the divide between academic and vocational pathways (Echeverría & Martínez-Clares, 2021). More recently, Organic Law 3/2022 has consolidated a modular, competence-based system aligned with European standards. Existing research indicates that VET in Spain predominantly enrols students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, with prior trajectories marked by low academic performance or risk of early school leaving, including a significant presence of young people of migrant origin (Merino et al., 2021). Access to VET is mediated by guidance processes and institutional opportunities, turning transitions into tension-laden spaces in which Basic VET may function as a retention mechanism despite high dropout rates (Tarabini & Jacovkis, 2021). In this context, trajectories are shaped as processes of dynamic vulnerability through the interaction of prior trajectories and institutional responses (Castel, 2003), where structural and guidance-related factors intensify or mitigate pre-existing risks at critical decision points (Arora et al., 2015). This article analyses how educational vulnerability is constructed and addressed in transitions into VET, focusing on the interaction between public policy repertoires, institutional practices and students’ experiences. Methodologically, the study combines a systematic analysis of national regulations coded along three key dimensions (attractiveness, transition, participation and retention) with qualitative data from observations in VET centres in the province of Valencia and interviews with students, therefore allowing to examine how policy framings of VET are recontextualised in institutional practices and personal experiences. The findings indicate that: students reproduce political narratives about the practicality of VET and improved educational relationships to explain its relevance after difficult school experiences; transitions are strongly mediated by guidance processes and centre-level support capacities, making vulnerability particularly visible at moments of change; and promises of permeability and equal opportunities are perceived unevenly across institutional and territorial contexts, revealing gaps between policy discourse and experienced realities. Taken together, transitions towards VET emerge as critical points where prior trajectories, institutional responses, and local conditions interact, shaping the students’ sense of belonging, well-being, and retention within the system

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