Even though Germany is an industrialized country, it continues to have low levels of basic literacy skills. According to the results of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) in 2012, adults in Germany have lower literacy proficiency than the OECD average (Rammstedt et al. 2013). Moreover, 6.2 million adults or 12% of the working-age population in Germany are considered "low literate" by the leo. – Level-One Study (Grotlüschen & Buddeberg 2020), which focuses on the lowest competence level of the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS). Based on the New Literacy Studies (Barton & Hamilton 1998) and ethnographic approaches, literacy can be defined as a social practice which is integrated into people's living environment and ascribed with subjective meaning. Therefore, it is important, "to distinguish dominant literacy from vernacular" (Street 1992, p. 51). With reference to Bourdieu's theoretical concept of habitus and field (1982, 1987), the diversity of literacy practices also results from different habitus- and milieu-specific approaches to written language (Pape 2018). These practices can show up in plural forms and are also embedded in power structures. Beside "legitimate literacy" (Grotlüschen et al. 2009) proficiency various areas of life and competence, such as media, health, finance, or politics, determine opportunities for participation in society. This perspective ties in with an extended concept of basic education, which opposes a more functional understanding of basic education that is limited to written language (Duncker-Euringer 2017). 

Within the German National Decade for Literacy and Basic Education various development projects are being promoted (BMBF, 2018), which also encompass 'unconventional' places of learning or learning formats. For instance, concepts of work-oriented basic education use 'outreach' strategies, whereby the place of learning is shifted towards the vocational world and work-related learning processes are initiated (Frey & Menke 2021). Moreover, young people in youth vocational assistance show low literacy levels (BAG OERT 2015) and thus can be taken into consideration as a new target group of work-oriented basic education. Since these young people do not directly enter the working world after leaving school and initially find themselves in the so-called ‘transition system’ being accompanied by teachers e.g., concerning their traineeships for orientation and job applications. The support of those participants is linked to specific labour market needs, which criteria are described in the catalogue for training maturity of the federal employment agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit 2009) and refer to the German activation policy of 'carrot and stick'. Peoples’ self-determined career prospects are then often marginalized or 'cooled down' by the agency in favour of increasing opportunities on the labour market as well as the goal of gainful employment (Walther 2014). Coming back to Bourdieu’s field theory, one could regard people who criticize the labour market conditions and, hence, oppose the field’s “doxa” (Bourdieu), as resistant preservers of their own agency. Our presentation therefore outlines these strategies of resistance: How is resistance expressed by participants in youth vocational assistance and related to their own biography and social background? Considering plural educational settings, it is intended to focus on the diversity of participants and, subsequently, explore how their diverse resistant practices are recognised by teachers with (potentially) different biographic and social background. Finally, we will relate to what extent resistance and its assumed emancipatory potential are being supported in the terms of youth vocational assistance. Our joint research project GABO (German abbreviation for Basic Education in the Context of Work and Vocational Orientation) provides the basis for these considerations, in which the perspectives of participants and teachers in their daily practice in youth vocational assistance are captured and intertwined.

The sample of the qualitative research consists of both, teachers working in youth vocational assistance and of participants in these particular settings. To collect our data, we conducted interviews gaining insights into the individuals’ biography and subjective meaning of the specific educational context. The collected data is being analysed with an interpretive-reconstructive approach called habitus hermeneutics (Bremer & Teiwes-Kügler 2013). This analysis method is based on the habitus-field theory of Bourdieu (1982) who states that the habitus as a "unifying principle" (of patterns of perception, conception, and action) is dialectically linked to social milieus: the habitus is acquired as a part of socialization in the social milieu of origin while the latter is shaped by the habitus bringing forth social practices of the subjects located within the social milieu. Among others, these practices refer to the conduct of life on the subjective level and the social position (education decisions, occupation, etc.) or capital configuration on the objective level. This approach is compatible with the concept of literacy as a social practice (Street 1992). It enables to highlight milieu-specific differences in literacy practices and corresponding valuations in relation to these practices. By means of this methodology, we aim to reconstruct the milieu-specific habitus of the subjects within the sample in order to draw conclusions about fitting dynamics between participants and teachers, as well as gaining insight about possible structural inequalities being reproduced within educational settings. Referring to a wide understanding of basic education we furthermore aspire to unveil the emancipatory potential within educational settings based on milieu-specific practices of resistance.

Considering the methodological procedure described above, individual habitus patterns of participants and teachers are being reconstructed and analysed regarding their fitting dynamics. Hence, non-fittings and discrepancies concerning the field and its inherent requirements bear the potential for resistance and can be a starting point for a wide understanding of basic education. Further results show that participants explicate and defend their interests and wishes for a career correlating with high aspirations instead of anticipating the allocation mechanisms associated in the field of youth vocational assistance. This issue ties in with the transition research in Switzerland by Luca Preite (2022), who examined the struggle of participants for their scope of action. Due to their habitus, some teachers tend to create educational 'free spaces' and therefore contribute to the participants’ self-determination and emancipation. At the same time, they are prone to have a certain proximity to the field-specific expectations, which can conflict with the needs and interests of the participants. Overall, our findings offer an insight to diverse practices of resistance related to the habitus and based on that, suggest sensitivity for inequities. Finally, emphasising the ability to criticise and judge as resources becomes a relevant focus to elaborate a wide concept of basic education.

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