A qualitative investigation into opportunity structures and disjuncture in the education-employment transition: ‘it’s scary, innit?’

Rolph, C ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6049-4960, Williams, S and Woolley, D, 2025. A qualitative investigation into opportunity structures and disjuncture in the education-employment transition: ‘it’s scary, innit?’. Journal of Education and Work. ISSN 1363-9080

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Abstract

We present a small-scale qualitative study of the transition from full time education to employment, focusing on young people who are just approaching this phase of their lives. We explore their understanding of this milestone through a series of focus groups. We also interviewed significant professionals working with young people: school teachers, careers leaders, and local employers. From the responses we identify four common themes: hopes and dreams; careers advice; industry links; and work readiness. While these themes were common to all of our participant groups, the articulation and understanding of them differed, such that adult views contribute to social structures that potentially reduce opportunity, reinforcing the sense of disjuncture for young people. Adult respondents underestimated the aspirations of young people and mistook expectations for ambitions. Both employers and those working in schools recognised a need for improved education-industry links, but there was a mutual sense of incapacity to make this happen, and different understandings of what it might mean to be work ready. Systemic failings appear to exacerbate difficulties faced by children whose families might struggle to support them as they navigate the education to employment transition.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Education and Work
Creators:	Rolph, C., Williams, S. and Woolley, D.
Publisher:	Informa UK Limited
Date:	2 April 2025
ISSN:	1363-9080
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1080/13639080.2025.2487425 DOI 2439129 Other
Rights:	© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Institute of Education
Record created by:	Laura Borcherds
Date Added:	20 May 2025 15:41
Last Modified:	20 May 2025 15:41
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/53627

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