INVESTIGADORES
JACINTO Claudia Gabriela
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Youth transitions policies in Latin America: new perspectives and their links with research evidence
Autor/es:
CLAUDIA JACINTO
Reunión:
Congreso; International Conference on Youth Policy and research; 2009
Resumen:
The presentation
will discuss some research evidence on youth transition in Latin America
comparing them with some key features of youth transition policies and analyzing
in what extend the policies are based on research evidence. The paper is based
in two pieces of regional research on the subject developed by RedEtis, a
regional network supported by IIEP-UNESCO. The countries included are Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Uruguay but
also a database of 202 policies and programs from the year 2000 was created and
analyzed.
Evidence shows that
youth transition is strongly conditioned by weaknesses and segmentation both in
educational system and in labour markets. Trajectories are de-standarized,
showing high rotation and mobility in the beginning of youth careers. All
groups show precarious trajectories but:
n Some lead to formal, decent jobs and
stability, or chosen self-employment with good incomes: around 25 years old
labour indicators begin to improve
n Other trajectories do not show improvement,
but persistence in precarious, not
chosen employment, with low incomes
n Others show exclusion, long periods of
unemployment, or extremely precarious and/or informal jobs (even illegal jobs).
Many types of disadvanges: structural, household and personal conditions.
?Broken subjectivities?.
Among the factors
related to misleading transitions it can be mentioned: low educational levels,
lack of training, social and ethnic discrimination, spatial segregation,
?constellation of disadvantages?, in terms of Walther and Pohl.
One mayor finding
in qualitative research is that, apart from structural factors and general
formulation of policies, the institutional, pedagogical and tutoring approaches
are key to reinforcing disadvantaged youth subjectivities and to understand why
some misleading trajectories can be changed into ?leading? trajectories.
Youth employment policies in recent years, especially those related to
undereducated youth, continue to give strong importance to vocational training,
based
on training centres and NGOs and first job programmes has increased. Some new
focuses that in part take into account previous research
- Promoting
alternative pathways to finish primary and secondary schools
- Orientation toward
?activation? of young people
- Promoting
integrated training systems
But, there are still no
permanent and articulated policies addressed to youth transition. Many programmes
have been based on a simplistic view of youth inclusion in the labour market,
by supplying too specific and/or low quality
training in a ?one shot? approach, disregarding the importance of
diplomas, and of an enlarged skills development approach. Internships and work
experiences are frequently oriented to integrated youth while the poorer are
oriented to self-employment. Mostly the links of the vocational courses with
regular vocational training in a lifelong learning perspective are lacking. Counselling
is frequently just to learn ?job seeking skills?, not in a holistic tutoring
approach. And concerning the most disadvantaged, generally programmes do not
take their constraints into account, such as lack of information, social
capital, resources, ?broken subjectivities?, etc.
In conclusion, recent changes in
youth transition policies do not show a new paradigm in conceiving the youth
transition process as a long and complex period and many ?segmented pathways?
shown by research.