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Convention Theory and Education to Work Transitions

Rebecca Ye (2024)

In Rainer Diaz-Bone & Guillemette de Larquier (eds.), Handbook of economics and sociology of conventions. Cham: Springer, Online first

Abstract. The relationship, effectiveness, and challenges of education to work transitions have been a preoccupation of policymakers, practitioners, sociologists and economists of education and labor markets. Once an area of study mainly confined to youth populations, these transitions have been complicated to the extent that these turning points are now observed through various phases of adult life. In grappling with the changing contours of learning and skilling for work that involve complex coordination among an assemblage of public/private, local, national and international actors, convention theory has been expedient in guiding research endeavors in this interdisciplinary area of inquisition. Moreover, transformations in learning and work trajectories brought about by crises, migratory flows, and changing demographics have signaled a need for social scientists to go beyond research techniques that have customarily focused on attributes, aspirations, backgrounds, or outcomes at the individual level, to widening the lens for scrutinizing governance and processes of (e)valuation. In doing so, the conflicting orders of worth and competing justifications inherent in transitions come into focus. This chapter presents research where economics and sociology of conventions (EC/SC or convention theory) have made generative applications and contributions to the literature, namely, through emphasizing the plurality in and of transitions, coping with the uncertainty and contingencies of transitions, and bridging the social and economic dimensions of transitions. Prospects for EC/SC in the study of education to work transitions and the empirical and methodological strides that can continue to be made within this fertile area of research are discussed in conclusion.

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