A global policy in local context/a local policy in global context: investigating dual VET youth transitions in Coahuila, Mexico

Vanderhoven, Ellen (2024) A global policy in local context/a local policy in global context: investigating dual VET youth transitions in Coahuila, Mexico. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

In recent decades, a global agenda has developed to promote apprenticeships as an educational policy solution of near universal relevance. Among such models, dual vocational education and training (dVET) is often considered the ‘gold standard’. As such, there has been intense activity to ‘transfer’ dVET from DACH countries (Austria, Germany, Switzerland) to elsewhere, including many low- and middle-income country (LMIC) contexts. Mexico is one such LMIC to have adopted dVET, in a process explicitly brokered by German co-operation actors. In 2013, the Modelo Mexicano de Formación Dual (MMFD) was piloted in 11 states, expanding over the proceeding decade.

This thesis identifies and addresses important gaps in research knowledge about ‘transferred’ dVET models of this kind, advancing theory about how dVET functions in LMIC contexts based on empirical research that centres the experiences and insights of young policy participants. Three waves of qualitative longitudinal interviewing were conducted with 16 MMFD participants (n=48) in the state of Coahuila, Mexico between February 2020 and February 2022. The Grammars of Youth framework developed by Ana Miranda and colleagues at FLACSO Argentina is used to conceptualise and explain the structures and strategies that mediate MMFD youth transitions.

Theoretically, the thesis extends the Grammars of Youth framework to develop a typology of grammars – i.e. structures – that mediate youth transitions, namely: subjective, temporal, and locational grammars. Subjective grammars relate to the influence of young people’s intersecting social identities, temporal grammars relate to the specific time context in which youth transitions unfold, producing distinct cohort effects, and locational grammars relate to the multi-scalar sociospatial contexts in which young people construct their transitions. In addition, this thesis also explains how and why MMFD participants employ different youth pragmatics – i.e. strategies – in their transitions and, thus, how grammars and pragmatics co-construct one another over time.

This rich and contextualised understanding of MMFD youth transitions is used to analyse MMFD policy features and suggest future policy directions to make dual training more effective and equitable. Furthermore, the ‘local’ case of the MMFD is used to scrutinise the discursive claims of the ‘global apprenticeship agenda’. Theories and assumptions about how apprenticeships function are found to be troubled by the contextual realities in which policy participants live, particularly in LMICs. These inconsistencies contain important risks related to inequalities, exploitative practices, and programme ineffectiveness. Greater attention to the lives and desires of young people as the embodied protagonists of dVET is argued to be a crucial means of counteracting those risks and pursuing an expanded vision of what vocational education can achieve.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: L Education > LC Special aspects of education
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Education
• Funder's Name: Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
• Supervisor's Name: Borkowska, Dr. Katarzyna and Mackenzie, Professor Mhairi
• Date of Award: 2024
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2024-84679
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 08 Nov 2024 16:16
• Last Modified: 08 Nov 2024 16:18
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.84679
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/84679