Queralt Capsada-Munsech

University of Glasgow | UofG · School of Education

In this country-comparative study, we ask to what extent differentiation in secondary education accounts for the association between social origins and social destinations in adult age. We go beyond the widely applied formal definitions of educational tracking and particularly pay attention to country-specific approaches to educational differentiat...

In this country-comparative study, we ask to what extent differentiation in secondary education accounts for the association between social origins and social destinations in adult age. We go beyond the widely applied formal definitions of educational tracking and particularly pay attention to country-specific approaches to educational differentiat...

This study investigates the adoption process of a TVET policy, usually driven by the state, by private actors. Considering a Cultural Political Economy analytical approach, we use the adoption of Sector Skills Councils in three Chilean sectors (mining, wine, maintenance) to examine the different factors that explain the process. We draw on intervie...

We analyse the influence of institutional, economic-material and discursive opportunity structures on the objectives (i.e., explicit goals) and orientations (i.e., interests, ideas) of LLL policies supporting young people in their transition from education to the labour market. We focus on the influence of opportunity structures at the regional lev...

We explore the early labour-market returns to following the academic track (such as A levels) rather than the vocational track (for example, NVQs) in upper secondary education in England. England is an interesting country case because students are ‘free to choose’ which upper secondary track they follow, unlike to many other European countries wher...

Advocates of grouping pupils by measured ability for instructional purposes claim that ability-homogeneous classrooms increase the attainment of high-ability pupils without detriment to the attainment of pupils judged to be of lower ability. Opponents of ability grouping, in contrast, argue that high-ability pupils do at best only marginally better...

We explore the influence of between‐school ability placement at lower secondary education on earnings across the life course in England and Denmark. We go beyond the mid‐career snapshot provided by previous studies by exploiting the availability of four decades worth of earnings data for individuals born in the mid‐1950s. Members of this cohort who...

This paper assesses the extent to which the associations between social origins and long-term educational and labor market outcomes are mediated through educational differentiation in secondary education. We compare seven mostly European countries with different secondary education systems. We argue that a simple distinction between comprehens...

In the aftermath of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, European authorities reinforced the economic objectives of European lifelong learning policy, promoting employability solutions to address youth unemployment, and increasing their political influence on the implementation of national lifelong learning reforms. This article investigates to what e...

This article adopts the skill ecosystem approach to the comparative analysis of skill mismatch across European regions within different skill formation regimes. Institutional arrangements of skill formation regimes are designed at national level. However, they are enacted in regions with very different Labor market and socioeconomic conditions, whi...

This article shows how the Scottish Government’s (SG) political management of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) has reinforced the economic goals of lifelong learning (LLL) under the skills for work agenda. Youth unemployment has been prioritized as the main social problem to be addressed, and most of the limited public resources for LLL have been...

In the second section, Vikki Boliver and Queralt CapsadaMunsech argue Mansfield’s argument cannot be sustained because key elements of the data are missing. They say the Department for Education data used by Mansfield relate only to those pupils who were still in education at Key Stage 5 (that is, post 16), thereby ignoring the pupils leaving schoo...

In a context of high youth unemployment rates, the employability agenda has dominated the design of European lifelong learning (LLL) policies. While the assumption of this agenda is that the causes of youth unemployment are individual and of an educational nature, our study explores to what extent regional labour market situations affect the effect...

This comprehensive collection discusses topical issues essential to both scholarship and policy making in the realm of Lifelong Learning policies and how far they succeed in supporting young people across their life courses, rather than one-sidedly fostering human capital for the economy. Examining specific regional and local contexts across Europe...

The methodological debate on how to measure overeducation has been present since the introduction of the topic in the academic debate. Nevertheless, there is still no consensus on a preferred indicator. This article aims at contributing to the existing methodological debate providing systematic and cross-country evidence on the variation across ove...

This report provides an overview and brief literature review of the English education system and the relevant educational reforms in relation to educational tracking and sorting. We employ the term 'tracking' when referring to formal educational differentiation, while 'sorting' refers to informal educational differentiation. The main objective is t...

This article focuses on the influence of social background on overeducation in Spain, understanding family socialisation as a source of knowledge and skills gain. The dramatic education expansion experienced in Spain in combination with a high percentage of low-skilled jobs has promoted overeducation occurrence to a larger extent than in other Orga...

The educational expansion experienced in most advanced economies in the past few decades has triggered a thriving debate on overeducation. Research on overeducation has traditionally been addressed from an economic perspective, mainly focusing on wage returns to extra years of education. More recently, the sociological literature has contributed to...

This dissertation studies overeducation incidence and persistence among graduates from different fields of study and social origin from a social stratification standpoint. Empirical research has shown that overeducation probability varies across graduates from different fields of study and social origin, but the relevance of social background in pr...

The Employers Survey forms part of a broader project to seek out the viewpoint of employers in enterprises and institutions regarding the employability of the recent graduate population in Catalonia. A survey was carried out on 1,325 employers having enterprises with a production activity in Catalonia, the objective being to provide information on...

This article focuses on cross-national differences in the prevalence of overeducation among young graduates by field of study and social origin. The article refers this cross-national variation to different degrees of tracking and vocational orientation of education systems. Fields of study and social origin have been found relevant predictors of o...

Aquest estudi analitza de manera comparada i interdisciplinària les dades de l’enquesta sobre les competències de la població adulta del programa PIAAC de l’OCDE. L’equip de recerca presenta cinc explotacions estadístiques independents que inclouen àmbits tan diferents com la relació dels estudis postobligatoris i les competències dels joves, la fo...

Empirical evidence has provided mixed results in reference to overeducation duration. While some claim it is a transitory phenomenon, others argue that it is permanent. There is not even a consensus on what is to be considered as a short or long overeducation period. More recently, some scholars have pointed out the possibility to consider overeduc...

This article explores the influence of social origin on overeducation across various fields of study. With the expansion of higher education most advantaged classes seek qualitative and quantitative advantages to differentiate themselves from other graduates. Although credentials are direct signals of productivity they can also be viewed by employe...

The present article aims at focusing on the indirect effect social origin can play on over-education through fields of study. Although credentials are direct signals of productivity they can also be used by employers as indirect signals of non-cognitive skills. These are mainly acquired through family socialization and become of crucial importance...