Educational transitions among young people after completing compulsory schooling are of key importance in order to increase the levels of social equity in contemporary European education systems. In fact, international organisations such as the OECD and the EU (under the Strategy EU2020) identify the access and completion of post-compulsory education as the threshold for social and labour inclusion (OECD, 2012; European Commission, 2014). From an equity perspective, thus, access to post compulsory education becomes a key mechanism of educational inclusion/exclusion (Green, 2010; Macrae, et al. 2003) affecting a large number of young people in European countries. This process is still more important in a context of economic crisis featured by an increase of the educational demand of young people and a high percentage of youth unemployment that specially affects the unskilled.

Given the relevance of this topic, the symposium will address it by taking into account three main analytical elements: the socioeconomic and cultural background of young people involved in the processes of educational transitions (and specifically the aspects related to different social class’ habitus) (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992; Bourdieu, 1993; Ingram, 2009); the institutional factors related to these processes (particularly the organizational habitus featuring different secondary institutions) (Reay, et al 2001); and the political-structural factors characterizing different welfare regimes and educational systems in Europe (NESSE, 2009).

In fact, the inclusion in the symposium of four countries representing different welfare regimes in Europe (United Kingdom, France, Finland and Spain) (Esping-Andersen, 1990, 1999) guarantees a clear comparative perspective addressed to identify similarities and differences across European countries concerning the transitions towards secondary and higher education and their consequences in terms of students’ pathways and choices in this field (Ball, et all, 2000).

The four papers included in the symposium raise similar theoretical questions and, by using different methodological approaches (qualitative in three cases and quantitative in one of them), come to high complementary results regarding the relation between educational transitions and social inequalities in Europe.

The discussant will raise questions addressed to find both common and specific analytical aspects of each paper and will introduce elements addressed to reinforce the scientific European agenda in this field

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