Educational and Status Positioning for 10 Years after Graduation from Secondary Educational Institutions

On the basis of the longitudinal research, there are compared the educational and status positions, which during ten years were occupied by three groups of young people: those who had graduated at the start from Secondary school, College, Vocational school. The latter two teach the profession and give a secondary education. Over the course of 10 years, four surveys of the same young people were carried out and 62 people representing groups of typical trajectories were interviewed in the finals.

The type of the starting secondary educational institution differentiates not only the first choice, but also all further accumulation of educational capital; it inertially influences the subsequent positions in education and the statuses. Even after reaching the same level of education after ten years, more advanced statuses are acquired by those who have higher capital of the starting secondary education and the accompanying better quality of the subsequent one.

Those who return to the educational system in the course of their working career, resort to this for the sake of access to the required specialty or position, and also (part of the surveyed workers) in order to legitimize the level of qualification or specialization in the already actually occupied workplace. This is especially true for jobs that require higher education. The respondents themselves explain that they turn to education only for the sake of its instrumental value.

The mass is the practice of recruiting for work not in a specialty of education. The possibilities of its conversion are different for those who received education in university, and in college. The first, as a rule, receive a workplace corresponding to the level of qualification of a professional. The second are less likely to receive jobs that require the qualification of a middle employee, some move down the hierarchy of social statuses.