Status
Ended
Project Manager
Nadia Lamamra
Team
Dr. Jonas Masdonati
Marine Jordan
Letizia Sisto
Partner Institutions
TEM Transitions école-métier
Project Description
This study reviews youngsters who prematurely interrupted their dual-track VET. It consists of a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews. The analysis of testimonies examines the reasons put forward by the youngsters to explain the training interruption, how they experience this situation, suffering at work and the strategies adopted by the youngsters to face this suffering. A second stage puts forward an analysis of the varied significance involved in prematurely dropping out of VET.
The study targets four objectives. First, the task is to better understand how youngsters feel and explain their dropout from dual-track VET: what are the reasons according to them? What processes led to interrupting their training? Secondly, a second reading of these testimonies serves to identify links between dropout and identity questioning. Indeed, if on the one hand certain dropouts are partly explained through identity problems, on the other hand a dropout may in turn hamper the construction of youngsters’ personal and vocational identity. Thirdly, the varying significance of a premature interruption should be stressed. Some interruptions may indeed be seen as a one-off incident which does not jeopardize the youngster’s future development, in which case one refers to continuity in the curriculum. In contrast, other interruptions seem to bar any vocational plan by leading the person into a dead end, in which case one refers to a dropout. Between these two extreme positions there are a series of so-called “discontinuity” situations. Fourthly, the results of the study will serve to put forward intervention and awareness-raising measures to prevent apprenticeship dropouts, adjusted to the way in which youngsters perceive or explain the problem.
Method
The methodology involves qualitative analyses of the content of 46 semi-structured interviews of an average 1-hour duration conducted with apprentices having left the VET system in the first year. The interviews are structured around three major themes: socio-biographic data (school and life experience), reasons for the interruption (divided into reasons of a personal, relational or systemic type) and the current situation (representations of the youngsters having dropped out, management of this dropout and future prospects). The interviews are recorded, transcribed and coded. The analysis categories are as follows: reasons for dropout, how the dropout is felt, influence of the dropout on future plans, socio-biographic data, “pioneering” situations, suffering at work, strategies in the face of suffering, representations, network, vocational identity.
Publications
Lamamra, N., & Masdonati, J. (sous presse). Enjeux identitaires des arrêts de formation professionnelle. In Gallant, N. & alii (Eds). L'identité sur mesure. Québec : Presses de l’Université Laval.
Lamamra, N., & Masdonati, J. (2010). Le décrochage en formation professionnelle analysée sous l'angle de la psychodynamique du travail. In Actes du VI Colloque International de Psychodynamique et de Psychopathologie du Travail, Sao Paulo : Association Internationale de Psychodynamique et Psychopathologie du Travail. [CD-ROM]
Masdonati, J., Lamamra, N., & Jordan, M. (2010). Vocational Education and Training Dropouts and the School-to-Work Transition. Education + Training, (52)5, 404-414.
Jordan, M., Lamamra, N., & Masdonati, J. (2009). Dropout rates in vocational education and training: A failure of the school-to-work transition? In F. Rauner, E. Smith, U. Hauschildt & H. Zelloth (Eds.), Innovative apprenticeships: Promoting successful school-to-work transitions (pp. 57-61). Berlin: LIT Verlag.
Lamamra, N., & Masdonati, J. (2009). Arrêter une formation professionnelle: Mots et maux d'apprenti-e-s. Lausanne: Antipodes.
Masdonati, J., & Lamamra, N. (2009). La relation entre apprenti-e et personne formatrice au cœur de la transmission des savoirs en formation professionnelle. Revue suisse des sciences de l’éducation, 31(2), 335-353.
Lamamra, N., & Masdonati, J. (2008). Adolescence en souffrance: Stratégies des jeunes face aux contraintes de la formation professionnelle. Reflets - Revue d'intervention sociale et communautaire, 14, 67-102.
Lamamra, N., & Masdonati, J. (2008). L’arrêt de formation professionnelle: Processus et significations. Panorama, 6, 13-14.
Masdonati, J., Lamamra, N., Gay-des-Combes, B., & De Puy, J. (2007). Enjeux identitaires du système de formation professionnelle duale. Formation Emploi, 100, 15-29.
Masdonati, J., & Lamamra, N. (2007). La formation professionnelle entre discontinuités et ruptures: Témoignages de jeunes ayant rompu leur contrat d'apprentissage [Electronic Version]. 
Actes des 3èmes rencontres Jeunes & société en Europe et autour de la Méditerranée
Lamamra, N., & Masdonati, J. (2006). Jeunes en difficulté dans la formation professionnelle: Une question identitaire? Actes du 14e Congrès de l’Association internationale de psychologie du travail de langue française (AIPTLF). Lille : Editions de l’AIPTLF [CD-Rom].
Contact Person
Nadia Lamamra