Across Europe, the transition from school to work remains a critical stage for young people with disabilities, even as countries invest in inclusive education and promote equal access to employment. Persistent inequalities arise from educational practices, employer decision-making, intersecting social identities, and broader institutional structures. This symposium brings together four complementary papers that examine these dynamics through a multi level perspective with different theoretical and methological approaches. Together, the four contributions ask how curriculum modifications, accommodations, social categorisations, and institutional and labour market contexts shape the transition from education into employment for young people with disabilities in Switzerland, Luxembourg and across Europe.
The first paper draws on longitudinal data from the Canton of Bern to analyse how curriculum modifications and academic accomodations in compulsory schooling influence transitions into upper secondary programmes. Using labeling (Goffman, 2009) and signaling theories (Spence, 1973), the study shows that modifications tend to channel students toward programmes with lower academic demands, particularly two-year apprenticeships, while accommodations do not negatively affect access to further pathways or the continuity of educational trajectories. These findings illustrate how support measures designed to promote inclusion can unintentionally act as labels that upper secondary institutions interpret as indicators of academic potential.
The second paper turns to employers as gatekeepers in the early stages of employment (Nagtegaal et al., 2023). Drawing on a factorial survey experiment with employers and recruiters in Switzerland the study explores whether support for workplace and job accommodations reduces hiring disadvantages experienced by young people with disabilities. While candidates with disabilities are generally evaluated less favourably than candidates without disabilities, the hiring penalty becomes substantially smaller among employers who express strong support for workplace and job accommodations. This effect is particularly pronounced for candidates with physical disabilities, highlighting the key role of organisational attitudes and accommodation readiness in shaping access to employment.
The third paper introduces an intersectional perspective, analysing the combined effects of disability status, migration background, and gender on hiring intentionsin Switzerland and Luxembourg. Drawing on intersectionality theory (Collins, 2019), disability critical race theory (Annamma et al., 2013), and theories of stigma and perceived productivity, the study applies a multilevel analysis of individual heterogeneity and discriminatory accuracy (MAIHDA) to distinguish additive from genuinely intersectional effects (Van Dusen et al., 2024). The results suggest that most disadvantages can be attributed to disability and migration background in an additive manner, with gender playing a smaller role. Although evidence of intersectional deviation is limited, the findings indicate that stigma and productivity-related (mis-)conceptions continue to affect hiring decisions across different national contexts.
The fourth paper expands the multi-level perspective by examining institutional influences on the risk and duration of being “not in education, employment, or training” (NEET) among young people with and without disabilities. Using data from thirty-one European countries and employing multilevel random slope regression models, the study investigates how features of national skill formation systems and disability policy frameworks affect transition outcomes. The findings show that higher vocational enrolment rates, certain forms of special school tracking, and higher levels of incapacity related public spending are associated with shorter periods spent outside education and employment for young people with disabilities.
Taken together, the four papers provide a multi level perspective on the transition from school to work for young people with disabilities, showing how individual experiences, organisational practices, and national institutional arrangements shape these pathways. The symposium discussion will synthesise mechanisms across levels and countries and examine how they cumulate and reinforce one another in the production of unequal trajectories. It will identify areas for further research and draw out implications for policy and practice that could contribute to more inclusive school-to-work transitions across Europe.

Annamma, S. A., Connor, D. & Ferri, B. (2013). Dis/ability critical race studies (DisCrit): theorizing at the intersections of race and dis/ability. Race Ethnicity and Education, 16(1), 1-31. Collins, P. H. (2019). Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory. Duke University Press. Goffman, E. (2009). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Touchstone. Nagtegaal, R., De Boer, N., Van Berkel, R., Derks, B., & Tummers, L. (2023). Why Do Employers (Fail to) Hire People with Disabilities? A Systematic Review of Capabilities, Opportunities and Motivations. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 33(2), 329–340. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10926-022-10076-1 Spence, M. (1973). Job market signaling. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 87(3), 355–374. Van Dusen, B., Cian, H., Nissen, J., Arellano, L., & Woods, A. D. (2024). Comparing the Efficacy of Fixed-Effects and MAIHDA Models in Predicting Outcomes for Intersectional Social Strata. Sociology of Education, 97(4), 342–362.