¿Estudiar para trabajar? Transición educativa-laboral de los egresados de la Educación Técnico Profesional en Chile

Abstract

This research analyzes the models of post-secondary education exit trajectories experienced by young people studying in the modality of professional technical education, and the place occupied by work experience once they have completed their secondary education. This longitudinal study combines quantitative and qualitative inquiry techniques applied to a sample of students in their last year of high school in 69 educational establishments in the Metropolitan Region of Chile between 2011 and 2016. Based on the construction of clusters and the analysis of the experience of subjects gathered in semi-structured interviews, the heterogeneous nature of the experience of the graduates of this training model was observed, as well as the instrumental role attributed to work in the process of educational-labor transition and, particularly, the weight acquired by personal experiences and decisions in the respective trajectories. Highlighting these processes and the associated subjectivities allows for a more complex analysis of issues such as the massification of higher education and the postponement of entry into the labor market experienced by new generations.