Interactional competences in institutional practices: young people between school and the workplace (IC-You)
| Project responsable |
Simona Pekarek Doehler
Geneviève De Weck Adrian Bangerter Esther González Martínez Laurent Filliettaz |
| Team member |
Cécile Petitjean
Virgnie Degoumois Maria Stoenica Ioanna Marianne Zogmal Cornelia Heyde Vassiliki Markaki Isabelle Durand Audrey Sublon Francesco Ursi Biagio Christa Hunziker Paloma Corvalan Dominique Trévert |
| Abstract |
With increased mobility, rapid demographic change and the growing
diversification of economic and cultural landscapes, the social
integration of youth through school and the professions has come
into unprecedented critical scrutiny across Europe. In parallel,
interactional competence has been put in the forefront of
educational research and policy as key to people’s adaptation to
and membership in the ever-changing social world. The two focal
objects of these debates, however, have so far been approached
separately: What is the role of interactional competences in young
people's pathways from education to work? To what degree do
interactional competences function as catalysts for recognition and
success, as a target of (often implicit) institutional mechanisms of
evaluation? This project is designed as an interdisciplinary
investigation into the dynamic relationship between young people’s
interactional competences and the larger social institutions within
which they operate. The project’s empirical focus is on a number of
key moments in the social trajectories of young people (up to the
age of 25): Obligatory and post-obligatory schooling, professional
training, job interviews, speech therapy sessions and the first
steps into work life. These represent institutionally defined,
highly selective stepping-stones into the future, where
interactional competences play a central role – whether officially
recognized as such or not. Bringing together five research groups
from applied linguistics, education sciences, psychology of work,
sociology and speech therapy, the project addresses the following
questions: - Legitimate competence: What are the concrete
institutional demands and expectations that school and the
professions put on young people's interactional competences? -
Mechanisms of legitimization: What are the micro-mechanisms through
which young people’s interactional competences are assessed in the
very course of practical activities within the institutions, as
part of larger (both overt and hidden) processes of social
legitimization? - The social construction of the institutional
order: How do these competences and the mechanisms of their
legitimization in turn both shape and reflect social institutions
and people's understanding of these? - (Dis)continuities between
key moments of youths’ trajectories: What continuities and
discontinuities exist between the institutional logics of
assessment regarding young people’s interactional competences at
key moments on their path towards the world of work and adulthood?
A qualitative methodology is used to investigate the complex
relation between young people's actual practices within the
institutions, their enacted representations of institutional norms
and the declared institutional policies. Focusing primarily on the
micro-details of social interactions, the project offers
empirically grounded knowledge about the concrete institutional
conditions that shape young people’s access to the work market and
to higher education. Its added value lies in addressing
interactional competences in a way that transcends both the
disciplinary and the empirical compartmentalization that generally
characterizes the study of institutional practices. The findings
are expected to offer significant input for future social and
educational policies. The project enriches an interdisciplinary
understanding of concepts that are fundamental to research in the
human and social sciences, such as interactional competence, social
representation and institution, and provides significant steps
toward designing and implementing qualitative research methods that
are intercompatible among the participating disciplines. |
| Keywords |
interactional competence, workplace, school, youth/adolescence, hidden curriculum, interaction analysis |
| Type of project | Fundamental research project |
| Research area | Langues romanes |
| Method of financing | FNS - Sinergia |
| Status | Completed |
| Start of project | 1-1-2012 |
| End of project | 31-12-2015 |
| Overall budget | 1'708'350.00 |
| Additional info |
http://p3.snf.ch/projects-136291# |
| Contact | Simona Pekarek Doehler |