Conference Agenda

In Italy, where foreign residents account for more than 9% of the population (Ministry of Labour and Social Policies, 2025), access to language, vocational, and adult education remains highly uneven and strongly shaped by migrants’ legal, social, and economic starting conditions (Save the Children, 2025; ILO 2023a; 2023b). Despite the central role attributed to training and language acquisition in integration policies, recent reforms (Italian Government, 2018; 2023; Ambrosini, 2023) have resulted in fragmented and insufficient provision of Italian language and vocational courses for adult migrants within the circuit of the first and second reception (SKILLS4JUSTICE, 2025; Nicoli & Vittori, forthcoming; Tūtlys et al., forthcoming). Consequently, access to education and training seems to depend less on individual aspirations or prior qualifications and more on legal status, employment obligations, and family responsibilities (De Luca, 2025). Available data indicate that migrants in Italy are three times more likely than Italian citizens to hold jobs that require lower skills than those they acquired in their countries of origin (Eurostat, 2025; Caritas, 2025). While some groups — such as unaccompanied minors or beneficiaries of international protection — are more likely to access basic training through reception systems, adult migrants without protection status face significant structural barriers (UNHCR, 2019). These barriers are particularly evident for those with unstable housing, care responsibilities, and urgent income needs. Against this background, this paper investigates the conditions under which adult migrants access, abandon, or renounce education and training pathways in Italy. Three research questions guide the study:

1. Which structural, legal, and socio-economic factors shape migrants’ access to language and vocational training?
2. How do work obligations, residence requirements, and family responsibilities influence educational trajectories?
3. To what extent does language education function as a tool for integration or as a mechanism of institutional control within the Italian migration ‘regime’?

Theoretically, the paper is situated at the intersection of adult education studies, migration governance, and critical approaches to educational inequalities. It conceptualizes integration as a conditional and selective process shaped by regulatory frameworks and labour market demands. Language education in the country of arrival is analyzed as an ambivalent device that can enable participation while simultaneously reinforcing mechanisms of control and marginalization.

Skilled labour migration is used as a strategy to overcome the shortage of skilled workers, not only in Germany but also internationally. In Germany, the Skilled Labour Immigration Act (FEG) was introduced in 2020 and amended in 2023 to regulate the skilled labour migration. This law creates a legal framework aimed at enabling the regulated and simplified immigration of qualified skilled workers (Schröder, 2024). In parallel, various programmes and cooperation models have emerged focusing primarily on formal skills and qualifications, while the perspectives and realities of life of the migrating skilled workers themselves often remain in the background (Liu-Farrer, 2025). Similarly, there is a tendency to view migrants in a deficit-oriented way, which is increasingly being criticised (e.g., Matysiak et al., 2023). This is contradictory to the understanding of integration and inclusion, as integration refers to a long-term and sustainable reciprocal process between all individuals with the conscious avoidance of discrimination to ensure fair and equal participation in all areas of social life (Bommes, 2011). The associated facilitation of participation is closely linked to inclusion, as this represents the target state (Georgi, 2015). Inclusion involves breaking down structures that disadvantage people and promoting participation (Georgi, 2015), supplemented by the aspect of intersectionality (More & Ratkovic, 2020). However, inclusion frequently fails due to the loss of resources experienced by migrants as a result of discrimination, a lack of recognition of qualifications and a lack of social networks, which permanently hinders their participation in society despite the structures offered (SVR, 2025). Empowering migrants is essential in this context, not because it is a matter of mere adaptation, but because it is about creating conditions that enable faire, non-discriminatory and shared shaping of social life.

According to Hobfoll (1989), the loss of resources is a stress diver, especially since migration itself is a stress factor (Herroudi et al., 2023), whereby empowerment can be used as a resource-gaining strategy. Empowerment, on the other hand, refers to self-empowerment and self-enablement as well as the strengthening of personal power, autonomy and self-determination (Herriger, 2020) and can be promoted with the help of a strength-based approach (Saleebey, 1996). This approach focuses on the strengths of individuals, which is consistent with the understanding of resource orientation.

Hobfoll (1998) developed the multiaxial coping model (Hobfoll, 1998), which enables the identification of coping strategies. He developed nine specific coping strategies that can be classified according to the dimensions of his multiaxial coping model (Hobfoll, 1998): prosocial/antisocial, active/passive and direct/indirect. This approach facilitates the application of active resource management. E.g., the search for support would be found on the prosocial dimension in addition to the active dimension. In reality, this would prove difficult due to a lack of social networking (SVR, 2025).

Results from recent studies also show that vocational education and training (VET) can contribute to inclusion and integration (e.g., Moreno Herrera et al., 2025). Although there are some access structures and accessibility measures provided by actors in VET and on the labour market (Klaus & Kühn, 2026), the potential scope of measures is not fully explored, nor is the potential for empowerment in the measures considered.

For this reason, this research aims to address the following research questions:

[R1] What coping strategies do (labour) migrants show in the context of migration, and what implicit or explicit strengths can be derived from these strategies?

[R2] What potential does VET offer for promoting the empowerment of (labour) migrants, and in what ways does it contribute to realising and fostering existing strengths, as well as enabling sustainable inclusion?

The civil war that began in Syria in 2011 has led to one of the largest mass displacement crises of the 21st century, rendering over 6.6 million people refugees and creating unprecedented pressure on the education systems of host countries. Turkey, situated at the center of this crisis, hosts over 3.6 million Syrians due to its "open-door" policy and geographical proximity. Syrians in Turkey do not legally hold "refugee" status but are under "Temporary Protection" status within the scope of the Law on Foreigners and International Protection enacted in 2013. While this status grants them rights to access basic services such as education and health, it places their lives on a ground of legal precarity.

Educational services, which were conducted through Temporary Education Centers (TECs) in the early years of the crisis, have evolved over time into a model where Syrian children are integrated into Turkish public schools. However, statistics reveal the difficulties of integration: While the schooling rate is 75% at the primary education level, it drops to 43% at the secondary education level. This dramatic decline indicates that structural barriers such as poverty, child labor, and language barriers detach refugee youth from formal education. At precisely this point, Vocational Training Centers (VTCs) emerge as a strategic intervention tool aimed at both preventing dropout and saving refugee youth from becoming a "lost generation" by integrating them into the labor market.

The VTC model in Turkey is based on an apprenticeship system where students receive theoretical instruction at school for only one day a week and spend the remaining four days receiving practical training in enterprises. This model has become an attractive option for both refugee families struggling economically and employers seeking cheap labor, as the state covers insurance premiums and provides wage support at a certain rate of the minimum wage. However, the literature emphasizes that this utilitarian approach carries the risk of reducing education to a mere instrument meeting market demands.

This study questions whether vocational education is a "social integration and mobility" opportunity for refugee youth or a mechanism that reproduces structural inequalities and class hierarchies, as conceptualized by Bourdieu (1990). In light of critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970) and social reproduction theories, this research, focusing on the "lived experiences" of refugee students, aims to fill the gap in the existing literature. The study examines whether vocational education confines refugee youth to low-status jobs and how it shapes their democratic participation skills from a multi-stakeholder perspective (student, parent, teacher, administrator).

In line with this general framework, the main aim of the research is to analyze the experiences of Syrian refugee students registered in VTCs in Turkey and to seek answers to the following sub-objectives:

• To reveal the socio-demographic characteristics, educational backgrounds, and primary motivations (economic necessity, legal status, etc.) of refugee students attending VTCs.
• To analyze the perceptions of school administrators, teachers, and parents regarding the quality, functioning, and qualifications provided to students by vocational education.
• To identify the challenges related to social exclusion, disciplinary practices, and working conditions amounting to exploitation (long working hours, low wages, etc.) that refugee students face in both school and workplace environments.
• To evaluate the perceived impact of vocational education on refugee students' future employment prospects and social mobility.
• To discuss whether vocational education serves to reduce or reinforce socio-economic inequalities through the lens of critical pedagogy and to develop policy recommendations in the context of the principle of equity in education.

This paper explores vocational learning and labour market integration among immigrant mechanics in Sweden’s car repair sector, with particular attention to the relationship between informal skill formation and formal vocational education and training (VET). Although immigrants are highly represented in automotive workshops—especially in small, independent garages—their vocational pathways, competence development, and access to recognised qualifications remain largely invisible in VET research. The overall aim of the study is to analyse how immigrant mechanics acquire vocational competence, how their skills are recognised or marginalised, and how technological change reshapes conditions for inclusion within the Swedish VET landscape.

The study addresses three research questions:

1. How do immigrant mechanics access and participate in formal and informal forms of vocational learning in Sweden?

2. How do technological transformations in the automotive sector reconfigure competence requirements and learning opportunities for immigrant workers and workshop owners?

3. What role does the Swedish VET system play—or fail to play—in recognising and supporting informally acquired vocational skills?

The analysis is theoretically grounded in Erving Goffman’s frame theory, which conceptualises frames as interpretive structures through which individuals make sense of work, learning, and institutional encounters. This perspective allows for an examination of how vocational competence is framed, negotiated, and evaluated in workplace settings shaped by migration, regulation, and technological change. Particular attention is paid to frames of learning through practice, economic precarity, and technological adaptation, revealing how these frames intersect with institutional definitions of “legitimate” vocational knowledge within VET.