[WORKSHOP] 🚩 H.00. Framing School-to-Work Programs: Evaluation, Voice and Social Justice

School-to-Work Programs (SWPs) are increasingly promoted as policy responses to the challenges young people face in accessing meaningful learning and work opportunities. Yet, evaluations often focus on immediate functional outcomes, capturing only part of their significance. Their democratic and distributive implications also depend on how SWPs are framed, evaluated and governed—on the assumptions they embed, the opportunities they open to different groups of students, and the forms of recognition and participation they enable or constrain. Drawing on capability and social justice perspectives, this panel examines SWPs as policy instruments whose design can either broaden opportunities or reinforce stratification.

We welcome contributions that investigate SWPs through evaluation lenses capable of making issues of justice, recognition, and voice visible. Proposals may explore:

(a) how SWPs distribute learning and work opportunities across social groups;

(b) how teachers, school leaders, educational and company tutors, families and host organisations negotiate responsibilities and expectations in contexts of institutional change;

(c) how students interpret and articulate their SWP experiences, bringing their voice to the forefront;

(d) how evaluation and monitoring tools illuminate the mechanisms linking local practices to broader regimes of inequality and precarious work.

During the panel, the Special Issue Learning for Democracy, 2/2025, “School-to-Work Programs: an Opportunity for Social Justice?”, will be presented, providing a shared framework for discussing its conceptual contributions and empirical insights. This presentation will support a broader exchange on comparative and international perspectives, upcoming research, and future directions for advancing work on SWPs, democratic evaluation, and educational justice.