School-to-work transitions and the life-course : an ecosystems analysis of a cohort of at-risk youths in Malta

Abstract

The manner in which school to work transitions are approached by young people is a significant aspect of their educational experience because of the implications that this transition has on their overall socialisation as members of society. This exploration is focused upon how a cohort of young men who attended a second opportunity all-boys’ school for at-risk students in Malta, in the early to mid 1990s, engage in these transitions. It is aimed at defining how influential the participants perceive their relationships with their primary carers or families-oforigin during their upbringing years to have been in their defining occupational or career outcomes, whether their schooling influenced these beliefs, and how this was further evolved as they gathered increased work-experience over time.