Contradictory Ruling Regulations in Practice – Empirical Evidence from an Implementation Study on Tolerated Refugees Access to the Vocational Training System in Germany

In our qualitative implementation study “Vocational Training of Young tolerated Refugees in Germany” we are exploring the pitfalls and challenges in transforming modified ruling regulations into organizational practice. Legal changes that have been introduced on the federal level since 2009 are the background of our research. They are to reduce vocational training boundaries for young refugees who are only timely-limited ‘tolerated’ and aim at opening up new legal avenues to transit to a legal residence status in the aftermath. This marks a sweeping novelty in German migration and integration policy. So far, tolerated refugees have been object to a broad-based institutionalized exclusion.

Evidence from our interdisciplinary (Sociology, Political Science) research reveals the legal inconsistencies and organisational difficulties in the implementation of the new regulations in various institutional subsystems. Empirically it is based on document analysis and long-term, multi-site fieldwork. Since 2010 we have been conducting semi-structured individual and group interviews with a wide range of experts and participated at expert meetings in order to uncover the organisational practice and ruling relations that may transform the vocational participation opportunities of this marginalized group of young non-citizens. Migration authorities’ social practices in the application of the modified legal rulings prove to be of a particular relevance. They may act as institutional gatekeepers either supporting or constraining the vocational inclusion of young tolerated refugees in a specific local context. This results in regionally diverse vocational training boundaries for the target group.

In our presentation we would like to touch upon these questions: How differently are the new regulations being transformed into practice within the relevant organisations of the immigration system? How may we explain these differences? Which lessons do we learn for scientific policy advice? To answer these questions, we outline the legal framework and present central findings of selected regional case studies.