Empowering At-Risk Youth in and Through Vocational Education

Dr Vidmantas Tūtlys is Professor of Education Science and Researcher at Vytautas Magnus University Institute of Educational Research in Kaunas, Lithuania. His research areas include development of vocational education and training policies, vocational education and training (VET) curriculum design, skill formation and qualification systems. Dr Tarja Tikkanen is Professor in Education at the University of Stavanger, Norway, and a Professor II at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL). She has extensive experience in research and development in lifelong learning in the context of work and job-competence. In more recent work, she has concentrated on teacher educators’ and teachers’ professional digital competence and its development in the context of digital transformation in education and in society. Most of her research has been international – mainly Nordic and European – but also regional amd national, in Finland and Norway. She leads the Erasmus+project on 'Strategic Partnerships for higher education, No teacher educator left behind' (NOTELEB, 2020-2023), with five partners from four countries, as well as the the Nordic/Nordplus network 'Digital Competence in Teacher Education in the Nordic Countries' (DICOMTEN, 2020-2022), with eight partners from six countries. She is also currently leading the Norwegian research team in the international EEA project 'Vocational education and workplace training enhancing social inclusion of at-risk young people' (EmpowerVET, 2021-2023), built in collaboration between Norway and the Baltic Countries, with Lithuania in lead. She has published widely on lifelong learning and job competence, including comparative studies based on the OECD’s PIAAC data. Dr Meril Ümarik, (Ph.D. in Sociology) is working as an Associate Professor of educational research at the School of Educational Sciences at Tallinn University, Estonia. Her research interests involve educational reforms and adoption of reform policies in vocational education and training (VET), vocational teachers’ professionalism, and gender segregation in VET. Her methodological expertise lies in qualitative research methods. Dr Biruta Sloka is a Professor at the University of Latvia. She is also President of the Association of Latvia’s Statisticians, a Member of Statistics Council of Republic of Latvia, as well as a member of scientific committees of international conferences, and editorial boards of several scientific journals. She led the EuroFaculty Riga centre (an international project of Council of Baltic Sea States – CBSS) and was advisor to six ministers of economy and two ministers of education and science.

• Chapter 1 Vocational pathways in the integration of at-risk youth: concepts, theoretical frameworks and research methodology.- Chapter 2 The multi-tiered support and empowerment of at-risk youth in VET in Norway.- Chapter 3 Vocational pathway of empowerment of at-risk youth in Lithuania – typical case of neoliberal reforms?.- Chapter 4 Empowerment of the at-risk youth in the VET system of Latvia: implications of systemic orientation to the labour market needs.- Chapter 5 Empowerment of at-risk youth in the VET system of Estonia: challenges and factors of success.- Chapter 6 Vocational pathways of empowerment of at-risk youth in Norway and the Baltics: comparative view.- Chapter 7 Agency of the VET schools and teachers in empowering at-risk youth for learning and employment: implications of capacity building interventions..- Chapter 8 Conclusions, implications for research and practice.