Socio-educational strategies and benefits in Basic Vocational Education and Training: the Basque Country case

Abstract

As part of the R+D+I project ‘EduRisk. Good practices with adolescents at risk in Basic Vocational Education and Training: towards greater educational effectiveness and social inclusion’, this article seeks to identify the benefits of the experience as a student in Basic Vocational Education and Training (BVET), as well as to analyse the educational strategies that make it possible to achieve these benefits. The discourses of 132 people (students, family members, educational staff and managers) were analysed through 17 discussion groups (6 face-to-face and 11 online) in 12 centres in the Basque Country. The results show how the experience is not only limited to academic benefits, but also transcends personal, family, peer and adult relationships. This is possible thanks to the articulation of specific practices in which the educational team plays a fundamental role in the generation of environments where students and their families feel protected and ‘re-collected’. The results of this research could be a fundamental contribution to the training of future education professionals, not only in BVET, but also in ordinary schools.

Keywords: basic vocational education and training, early school leaving, social inclusion, teaching staff, families