Tabea Schlimbach

The geographical mobility of young Europeans takes place within institutional realms that frame young people´s educational and vocational situations. These institutional framings provide unequal preconditions for going abroad. Starting from an action-oriented theoretical approach, the aim of this work was to explore young people´s international moves within different mobility settings. Based on 52 qualitative interviews with mobile youth from three mobility fields in three countries (students from Luxembourg, employees in Norway and Luxembourg and apprentices from Germany), the dynamic concept of context-sensitive mobility-related modes of action (MRMA) was developed. The applied analytic framework reflects the fact that individual perceptions and actions relating to going abroad differ greatly according to the young people’s specific current educational/vocational situations. Moreover, the comparative approach sheds light on different dimensions of inequality caused by these framing systems.

Background: The concept of NEET (young people not in employment, education or training) was introduced to capture the varieties of youth labour market disengagement and has become a standard statistical indicator for labour market performance. However, it is criticised for simplifying the heterogeneity of young people in problematic youth transitions and for emphasising their deficiencies in terms of affiliation to key institutions in youth transitions. Purpose: The article contributes to the research on youth transitions by offering a narrative perspective on the status of NEET. Its purpose is to investigate how NEET periods are embedded and reflected within biographical action and self-perceptions. Sample: The article is based on the analysis of 21 cases from a qualitative longitudinal study about coping strategies of secondary school-leavers in school-to-work transitions in a city in the west of Germany (altogether, 180 interviews were conducted). During the first wave of interviewing in 2012, the young men and women were 16–20 years old. Design and methods: In order to reconstruct the young people’s biographical experiences of the transition as well as their interpretations of these experiences qualitative problem-centred interviews were carried out over three waves of data collection. The qualitative analysis combined case reconstructions with cross-case analysis of typical narratives, which focused on the identification of key themes organising the biographical orientation of the young people. Results: In biographical accounts, analysis revealed that NEET periods are embedded in analytically distinguishable rival narratives that establish different selective perspectives on events, choices and experiences. We identify seven main narratives related to the topics of vocational status, self-actualisation, meaningful activity, convenience, money, leisure and life problems. Young people are well aware of the problematic nature of NEET status. On the level of action, they try to avoid or exit them by accepting precarious and de-qualifying activities; on the level of biographical reflection, they use rival narratives to re-embed the NEET experience, to bypass it or avoid mentioning it altogether. We suggest calling this phenomenon ‘NEET in disguise’ (NID) referring to acts of system justification. Conclusions: This article shows how young people struggle to avoid and conceal the problematic status of NEET and thus, contribute to the institutionally suggested normalisation of biographical discontinuities.

Der Beitrag untersucht, wie individuelle Entscheidungs- und Handlungsspielräume im Prozess des Übergangs von der Schule in die Berufsausbildung durch das Zusammenspiel von sozialen Herkunftsbedingungen und individuellem Handeln beeinflusst werden. Ein besonderes Augenmerk liegt auf der subjektiven Wahrnehmung und Verarbeitung sozialer Herkunftserfahrungen. Die Ergebnisse einer qualitativen Studie mit Haupt- und Realschulabsolventen zeigen, dass die Bewertung herkunftsspezifischer Kapitalien sehr vielfältig ist und Handlungsspielräume im Übergang maßgeblich mit beeinflusst. The Interplay between Social Background and Strategies of Individual Agency in the Transition from School to Vocational Education This paper explores how the interplay of social background and individual agency influences individual scopes of action in transitions from school to vocational education. A specific focus lies on young people's subjective assessment of social attributes and the actions they take as a consequence. ...