Governance Patterns and Opportunities for Young Adults in Austria, Spain and Portugal

Abstract

In this chapter, we analyse how governance patterns of LLL policies, particularly VET systems, shape youth opportunities in the transition from education to employment in specific regional contexts. In doing so, we resort to institutional analysis, applying a general framework of institutional opportunity structures. We consider specific policies that aim at improving youth qualifications, while interacting with their local context, as case studies for comparison. We compare policies adopted in functional regions from three European countries: Portugal, Spain, and Austria. In Upper Austria, the policy intervention examined aims at recognising and improving qualifications of people who have not completed an apprenticeship. In Catalonia, the Spanish programme mostly targets early school leavers to increase their low level of qualification. In Vale do Ave, located in Northern Portugal, the training courses examined are targeted to underqualified young adults, unemployed or not, offering them compulsory education and professional certification, while giving access to further education or to the labour market. The comparison shows clearly the differential impact of the interaction between governance patterns and specific contexts on youth opportunities in the labour market.

An Institutional Analysis of Local Lifelong Learning Approaches to Early School Leaving in Italy and Spain

“…Some studies have critically scrutinized local partnerships of VET providers [18] in diverse countries as Spain [19] and Sweden [20]. The point is that varied patterns of cooperation and competition between local providers [21] as well as of initiatives to tackle local uncertainties [22] eventually mold local opportunity structures.…”