The paper will introduce the concepts, hypotheses and workplan for the analysis of interviews and documents on the official definition of learning outcomes in eight EU member states. The main goal is exploring in which ways the prevailing understandings of learning consider the life course of students, the intersectional inequalities that constrain their opportunities and the regional disparities within the Union. It is an initial and provisional output of the CLEAR Horizon- Europe research project (Grant Agreement N. 101061155).

The paper will outline the main theoretical arguments that underpin an institutional analysis of learning outcomes and will introduce a few methodological considerations. The bulk of the literature on this theme focuses on the processes and outcomes of individual learning in schools and some other educational settings. However, the growing complexity of education and training strongly recommends considering how learning outcomes are defined in the different educational programmes that individuals undertake during their life. Although school performance is a milestone, other issues are also extremely relevant, not least the transition to higher education and VET, adult learning and qualifications frameworks (Parreira do Amaral et al, 2019; Benasso et al, 2022).

An array of theoretical insights on the life course, policy design and implementation as well as space underpin our decision to focus on learning outcomes beyond the realm of individual schools and similar educational institutions.

Firstly, the rich strand of life course research has convincingly argued that most themes of educational and social research require longitudinal or at least narrative approaches that take both institutional trajectories and subjective changes into account (Furlong, 2009; Mayer, 2009). While other outputs of the project will focus on subjective changes, in this paper we will explore how policymakers and educators construe the trajectories of 18- to- 29-year-olds in Europe. A key insight of this literature is that not only education, but also social protection and active labour market policies significantly contribute to pattern such trajectories (Walther, 2017).

Secondly, we will draw on the growing strand of research that applies historical institutionalism to education policy (Emmenegger, 2021). Political scientists gather under this label a variety of studies that spell out the interests and the ideas whereby policy actors trigger changes amid several routines and normative orderings (i.e., institutions). This approach coincides with sociological approaches to structuration and morphogenesis (Archer, 2000) as well as with the concept of the politics of education in comparative education research (Dale, 2000; Steiner-Khamsi, 2009). Our main research questions will investigate the institutional trajectories that establish educational and employment opportunities through this lens (see below).

Thirdly, our research will be particularly sensitive to space and territory. Several sociologists of education have proposed to include this dimension in the standard theoretical frameworks in the field (Ball, S.J.; Maguire, M.; Braun, A.; Hoskins, K.; Perryman, 2012; Robertson, S. & Dale, R., 2008). Our research will mostly inquire to what extent morphogenesis and similar concepts account for the social construction of regions (Löw, 2016) so much so that education and training influences the location of people in space and enacts process that delimit territories (Rambla and Scandurra, 2021).

In a nutshell, these premises suggest the following research questions for our investigation:

• On which grounds do policymakers and educators articulate the official definition of learning outcomes of different educational programmes? This question is inspired on the literature on the life course and historical institutionalism.
• To what extent do these subjects take regional and local contexts into account when the articulate these variegated concepts of learning outcomes? This question is inspired on the literature on the life course, historical institutionalism and space.

The paper will discuss some preliminary findings of ongoing reviews of grey literature in sixteen European regions as well as the design of a survey addressed to experts in the eight EU member states where these regions are located. It is a small piece of a bigger research design that has adopted the following decisions. Sampling: The research will focus on diverse regions in terms of economic specialisation and recent trends (e.g., big cities, declining or stagnating localities, rural industrial districts and a few rural areas). In each region, the literature review will look for references to three branches of VET that correspond to different economic sectors. The survey has been circulated among experts in these areas too. Health services, the IT industry and the hospitality industry have been selected insofar as the socio-economic background of the labour forces is disparate in sectors, with a increasing presence of workers with a low-socioeconomic status and a higher prevalence of social vulnerability from the former to the latter. Literature review: The research consortium has looked for the prevailing definitions of learning outcomes in an array of official documents. School, adult, vocational and higher education have been included. Currently, the researchers are comparing the definition of learning in all these programmes across the countries and the regions. Survey: The survey proposes experts to ponder several scenarios of future education and training in their country and region. These scenarios have been designed so that the observed trends in both education and training systems and labour markets are noticed. At the same time, they give leeway for the interviewees to add their personal interpretation. Interviews: Although the paper will not discuss any interview, the research project foresees to interview about 100 professionals and 160 young adults who are enrolled in education and training programmes in the regions. Besides controlling for socio-economic background, gender and the meaningful ethnic markers in the region, the interviews will prioritise the youth that suffer from circumstances of social vulnerability. Research questions and methodology: Roughly, we expect to provide some clues on the definition of learning by means of the literature review. At the same time, the survey and a few conclusions of the literature review will shed light on the spatial dimension of adult learning in the EU.

Our abstract can hardly mention any conclusions at this stage of project implementation. Instead, here we will only hint a few observations that some initial data suggest. • The official definitions of learning outcomes are biased so that the concerns of young adults with a lower socioeconomic background are not fully recognised by the current education and training systems in the EU. Thus, most baccalaureates are designed as a natural continuation of school trajectories while transitioning to VET entails an institutional rupture. Similarly, the ongoing endeavours to foster the validation of prior learning do not really implement full-fledged institutional systems beyond the core of regions that have developed large apprenticeships in Germany and the neighbouring countries. In a similar vein, the VET branches and economic sectors that endow workers with higher occupational positions such as health services draw on very clear, hierarchical and school-based definitions of learning. At the other extreme, a sector with a much more diverse labour force as the hospitality industry so far has established more blurred concepts of learning. • Cities and regions are not similarly cohesive across the European Union. Certainly, their socio-demographic and socio-economic structures make a big difference. But additionally, while some cities and regions are very visible realities for experts, in other locations policymakers and educators struggle with vague and evanescent notions of what is the relevant region for education and training policy.

Archer, M. (2000). Being Human. The Problem of Agency. Cambridge University Press. Ball, S.J.; Maguire, M.; Braun, A.; Hoskins, K.; Perryman, J. (2012). How Schools Do Policy. Policy Enactments in Secondary Schools. Routledge. Benasso, S.; Buillet, D.; Neves, T.; Parreira do Amaral, M. (Eds.), (2022) Landscapes of Lifelong Learning Policies across Europe Comparative Case Studies. Palgrave- Macmillan. Dale, R. (2000). Globalisation and Education: Demonstrating a “Common World Education Culture” or Locating a “Globally Structured Educational Agenda”? 427–448. Emmenegger, P. (2021). Agency in historical institutionalism: Coalitional work in the creation, maintenance, and change of institutions. Theory and Society, 50(4), 607–626. Furlong, A. (2009). Revisiting transitional metaphors: reproducing social inequalities under the conditions of late modernity. Journal of Education and Work, 22(5), 343–353. Löw, M. (2016). The Sociology of Space. Materiality, Social Structures, and Action. Palgrave Macmillan. Mayer, K. U. (2009). New Directions in Life Course Research. Mannheimer Zentrum Für Europäische Sozialforschung, 122. Parreira do Amaral, M.; Kovacheva, S.; Rambla, X. (2019). Lifelong Learning Policies for Young Adults in Europe. Navigating between Knowledge and Economy. Policy Press. Rambla, X.; Scandurra, R. (2021). Is the distribution of NEETs and early leavers from education and training converging across the regions of the European Union? European Societies, 23(5), 563–589. Archer, M. (2000). Being Human. The Problem of Agency. Cambridge University Press. Ball, S.J.; Maguire, M.; Braun, A.; Hoskins, K.; Perryman, J. (2012). How Schools Do Policy. Policy Enactments in Secondary Schools. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55783-4 Dale, R. (2000). Globalisation and Education: Demonstrating a “Common World Education Culture” or Locating a “Globally Structured Educational Agenda”? 427–448. Emmenegger, P. (2021). Agency in historical institutionalism: Coalitional work in the creation, maintenance, and change of institutions. Theory and Society, 50(4), 607–626. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-021-09433-5 Löw, M. (2016). The Sociology of Space. Materiality, Social Structures, and Action. Palgrave Macmillan. Mayer, K. U. (2009). New Directions in Life Course Research. Mannheimer Zentrum Für Europäische Sozialforschung, 122. Robertson, S., & Dale, R. (2008). ‘Making Europe’: state, space, strategy and subjectivities. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 6(3), 203–206. Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2009). Knowledge-Based Regulation and the Politics of International Comparison. Nordisk Pedagogik, 29, 61–71. Walther, A. (2017). Support across life course regimes. A comparative model of social work as construction of social problems, needs, and rights. Journal of Social Work, 17(3), 277–301.