The project is designed as a multilevel research at national, local and individual levels that correspond to the three modules of the study. At the national level (module 1), the project mapped TVET policies and programs, analysed the content of policy documents, regulations and media debates, and interviewed relevant international and national policy actors in different areas of government and beyond government that have been involved in TVET policymaking (n=24). At the local level (module 2), the project conducted case studies in three regions/localities (e.g. Santiago de Chile, Valparaiso and Antofagasta). The data in this module includes 23 interviews with local implementers, school leaders, tutors, trainers, tertiary education providers, employers, unions and local chambers of commerce. Finally, at the individual level (module 3), the project carried out extensive fieldwork with a sample of TVET students and graduates from the three local case studies from module 2. The data collected includes a longitudinal survey (n=533), focus groups (n=27) and interviews (n=20).Chile has experienced considerable educational expansion over the past few decades as a result of the growing demand for education from individuals and families and the positional competition for qualified jobs in the formal sector of the economy. While in the past TVET policies were designed to offer educational opportunities for disadvantaged youth seeking a quick insertion in the labour market, today the orientations and the objectives of these policies are less clear given the larger number of secondary TVET graduates that pursue tertiary education and combine education and work in their trajectories after schooling. In this context, TVET continues to be a strategic sector for improving the skills of most disadvantaged youth over their life course but the transitions of these young adults from secondary to tertiary education and from education to work are becoming more problematic due to the high stratification of tertiary education supply, the scarcity of qualified jobs in the economy and the poor coordination of public policies targeting young adults. The project aims to understand the potentially competing, and possibly ambivalent, orientations and objectives of TVET policies in Chile, their compatibility and contradictions with the aspirations of secondary TVET graduates, and their intended and unintended effects on the educational and labour market trajectories of these young adults. An important contribution of the project is the incorporation of the perspective of young adults (their expectations, aspirations and strategies) into the debate on how TVET policies can better support disadvantaged youth in their transition to work. By doing this, the project aims to contribute to the design of TVET policies that better accommodate the demands and needs of vulnerable young populations in changing labour markets and societies, which emphasize the relevance of this kind of research in this particular moment in transitional economies like Chile. Conceptually, the project is based on three major theoretical perspectives - Cultural Political Economy, Life Course Research and Governance Perspective. The combination of these different systems of thought matches the topic's broad variety of dimensions. The proposed project brings together different disciplinary social scientific approaches, which aim at conceptualising the research questions in adequate ways due to its complexity; further, its drawing from theories and methods from Education Science, Sociology and Political Science purports addressing methodological issues related to the complex dynamics of policy-making by means of an interdisciplinary perspective. In order to achieve its aims, the study is designed as a multilevel qualitative research at national, local and individual level. At the national level, we will map TVET policies and programs, will review policy regulations, and will interview national policy makers and stakeholders. At the local level, we will conduct case studies that will involve interviews with local authorities, TVET schools, and others. Finally, at the individual level, we will carry out interviews with a typological sample of secondary TVET graduates with different educational and labour market trajectories. This project expects to expand the research evidence on TVET policies in Chile and their implications for the trajectories of TVET graduates after school. We expect that the evidence produced for the case of Chile will contribute to the debates on how TVET can improve the living conditions and labour market opportunities of disadvantaged youth in middle-income and low-income countries, what is a priority for many development agencies today.

The methods of data collection for each of the modules of the research project are: - Module 1: semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, including policymakers, representatives from think tanks, academics, representatives from private providers organisations, and trade unions. - Module 2: semi-structured interviews with regional key stakeholders. For each of the regions analysed (Antofagasta, Valparaíso and Santiago) representatives from companies, public administration, TVET providers or employers’ organisations were interviewed. - Module 3: This module includes two methods of data collection. First, a longitudinal survey of secondary vocational students. Second, semi-structured interviews and focus groups with secondary vocational students