Research Strategy

Attention: open in a new window. PDFPrintE-mail

In order to scrutinise the necessary competencies and capabilities of young persons within an emerging European knowledge society and economy, the WorkAble project will look at young people and how their transition from school to the labour market or from unemployment to the labour market is framed (by education).

Our most important target groups will be youngsters who are known to be having trouble with these transitions: early school leavers, young unemployed in general, unemployed young higher education graduates and those who have no upper secondary education qualifications. Especially for these target groups, it is necessary to ask how far the educational system provides young people with capabilities.

The research strategy rests on the complementarities between qualitative and quantitative methodologies, reflected in the close interconnections between the Work Packages.

  • The first step in the overall strategy will be to shape and adapt the capabilities approach (CA) as an umbrella concept and a theoretical and methodological framework for the whole project so that it will be able to accommodate the complex and innovative combination of methods to be used.
  • The second step will be to conduct a documentary analysis and interviews with relevant political stakeholders in all participating countries.
  • In a third step, WorkAble will analyse innovative intervention projects on the level of educational providers. There will be 9 case studies on programmes and institutions working with those who fail in labour market transitions in each country. Every case study will focus on the institutional and normative frame of the programmes, their organisational forms and logics of action and the inter-organisational networks they are embedded into within the local context they operate in. On a comparative level, we analyse which educational and vocational resources provide opportunities to make the acquirement of skills accessible and reasonable.
  • The fourth step consists in a secondary analysis of EU-SILC longitudinal data. Using this empirical instrument will permit causal inferences about influences on the labour-market transitions of young Europeans and their capabilities for work, learning and full participation. This will deliver better insights into the reasons for the success or failure of these transitions. 
  • In sum, the research work will provide a fundamental analysis of the necessary competencies and capabilities of young persons in Europe.