Reducing inequalities and social exclusion in Europe - 80 million people at risk of poverty and 14 million young people not in education, employment or training - are crucial challenges for the socio-economic viability of the European project. One common policy prescription for tackling the unprecedented levels of youth unemployment involves urging provision of more Vocational Education and Training (VET). While potentially useful this approach does not seem to do enough to improve the transitions of young people from education to work. This symposium proposes therefore two conceptual shifts to better support young people in their journeys to work: first, greater consideration needs to be given to systemic differences in transition arrangements at national and local levels, with their embedded cultural assumptions and the unequally valorized learning spaces created for young people; second, within such a more holistic framing, transition arrangements need to be more rigorously grounded in learning theories.

Our starting point is the construct of transition system ‘the relatively enduring features of a country’s institutional and structural arrangements which shape transition processes and outcomes’ (Smyth et al, 2001, 19). However, to create more supportive, comprehensive transition systems requires thinking beyond the institutional congeries of national and local labour markets, education and training systems, welfare regimes and structures (Mills and Blossfeld, 2005; Raffe 2008). Such a conceptual framework fails to take sufficient account of young people as learners moving iteratively through the transition system, searching for employment and training opportunities, nor the influence of families and local circumstances on these highly path dependent processes. To develop these ideas further this symposium therefore provides a range of perspectives on transitions, construing the journey through transition systems as a dynamic yet socio-culturally and spatially bounded process of learning, rather than just a linear sequence of rationally made decisions.

 The Symposium therefore foregrounds the nationally, culturally and locally shaped learning journeys of young people making their way between schooling and work.  The first paper considers journeys from education to work from the perspective of different theories of learning, with approaches taken to support transitions from school to work across Europe analysed to identify how current practices can be designed to draw on sophisticated understandings of how people learn. The emphasis on learning is picked up in the second paper on the development of personalized learning opportunities to support young people outside the German dual system. However, the paper also indicates the importance of the wider institutional context in shaping the value placed on such opportunities. This theme is developed in the third, Spanish paper emphasising the importance of viewing learning journeys as embedded within wider social and political processes that impact on transition. It questions transition models that over-stress the importance of practical training and VET, while disregarding the role of local contexts, families and employers. The fourth paper drawing on Greek research, extends this perspective illustrating the interplay between distinctly valorized institutional cultures, familial legacies and young people's imagined futures, developing a situated and socio-cultural account of decision making. This is taken further in the final paper arguing that spatial perspectives further enhance our understanding of the parameters that enable and constrain transitions (Dovey, 2010). This suggests both the significance of the kinds of spaces and the local manifestations of those spaces that educators, employers and policy-makers construct for young people while drawing attention to an important skill-set not typically integrated into VET curricula. The implications of these understandings of transitions for future research, policy and practice will be discussed, critically evaluating the possibilities for a more nuanced and grounded approach to VET and its role in different transition system configurations.