“Choice’ in Complex Education and Training Landscapes: a spatial and choice-set methodology for analysing post-secondary transitions of English ‘Lower Attainers’”

This paper argues that applying a combined ‘choice set’ and spatial methodology can help advance our understanding of the ways in which young people are experiencing the transition from secondary to upper secondary education and vocational training. In particular it focuses on the transitions of 16 year-olds in England who are labelled as ‘low attainers’ due to their performance in national examinations taken at the end of secondary education. Youth transitions across Europe are becoming more complicated and extended, and the variability in the type, quality and accessibility of post-secondary programmes creates local and regional inequalities (cross-cut by gender, ethnicity and social class) that can be hidden at a national level (see inter alia, Tarabini and Ingram, 2018; Schoon and Eccles, 2014; Lahelma, 2009). In England, these inequalities affect all young people, but ‘lower attaining’ students are particularly affected.