The effect of structures and forms of knowledge in dual vocational education on occupational and employment stability

• Applicants: Dr. Franziska Ganesch; Professor Dr. Olaf Struck
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 512767487

Technological, digital change and the competition of a global economy are accompanied by changing job requirements and employment conditions. Demands on qualifications have increased for a large number of workers and they will continue to change and increase in the future. Accordingly, phases of non- and informal education have increased (Bilger, et al. 2017). And the proportion of employees who switch between individual activities within companies, between companies or between occupations has also increased (Giesecke, Heisig 2010; Dütsch, Liebig, Struck 2013; Dütsch, Struck 2014). Thus, employees will have to face more frequently new job requirements.Vocationally trained people are differently well prepared for changing professional requirements and flexibility in the course of life. Here, already the approaches to vocational training differ (Buchholz, Prater 2017; Hillmert, 2017; Konietzka, Hensel 2017). And the passages from vocational training to work are also characterized by inequality (Brzinsky-Fay, Ebner, Seibert 2016; Dietrich, Abraham 2018; Dorau 2020).Very little research has been done on the possible significance of the structures and forms of knowledge in the curricula of vocational training. The regulations differ significantly in terms of their professional broadness and their varying degrees of focus either on a few manual skills or on extensive technical and process know-how and the learning times set for this.The aim of the project is to investigate the question: How significant is the explanatory content of learning times (time benchmarks) in vocational training curricula, including more abstract and process-oriented learning contents, for job-specific technical and material knowledge, activity-specific manual skills and learning opportunities for practicing language and IT skills on the occupational and employment stability of young adults?In the analyses, selection processes of access to training occupations or profiles, competence characteristics of the labour force, and company and economic regional factors are included or controlled, partly as mediators and partly as moderators. The data basis is the trajectory data of apprentices (SC4) of the National Educational Panel Study. Their survey content makes it possible to test the thesis in a unique way that, with intensive control of further influences, the structures and forms of knowledge of the curricula, among other things, should be attributed to a positive or negative influence on employment trajectories. For this purpose, the panel data are linked to time benchmarks of the categories "process knowledge", "occupation-specific technical and material knowledge" and "activity-specific manual skills", which are obtained through content analysis from the approx. 320 vocational training regulations as well as the presence of language skills and IT-knowledge.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants