Guilty of Success and Failure: Permeability Struggles of Unsuccessful Upper Secondary VET Examinees in the Czech Republic

Export Citation

Novotný, P, Rozvadska, K and Majcík, M (2025) Guilty of Success and Failure: Permeability Struggles of Unsuccessful Upper Secondary VET Examinees in the Czech Republic. Social Inclusion, 13. ISSN 2183-2803

[thumbnail of Guilty of Success and Failure_ Permeability Struggles of Unsuccessful Upper Secondary VET Examinees in the Czech Republic.pdf]
Preview
 Text
Guilty of Success and Failure_ Permeability Struggles of Unsuccessful Upper Secondary VET Examinees in the Czech Republic.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.
Download (511kB) | Preview

Abstract

This article examines upper secondary vocational education students who have failed the exit examination (Matura) at least twice. Repeated failure leaves such students with only a basic education certification, restricting their access to higher education and limiting their labour market prospects. Although most of these young people wish to make another attempt to pass the Matura, they have lost their formal student status, along with its associated benefits, and most are compelled to seek employment. Academic failure, particularly at these critical transition points, can have profound implications on students’ educational and professional trajectories and their identities. The research question we posed here, therefore, is: How do the identities of upper secondary vocational education Matura examinees evolve during the two years after they fail the final examination? The data corpus for this study consists of biographical interviews with 46 informants who failed the Matura. The data analysis reveals that they struggled to anchor their identities through study, work, or family, with some exploiting non‐systemic permeability mechanisms.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: 1608 Sociology; 4403 Demography; 4410 Sociology
Subjects: L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education
Divisions: Liverpool Business School
Publisher: Cogitatio
Date of acceptance: 15 July 2025
Date of first compliant Open Access: 4 September 2025
Date Deposited: 04 Sep 2025 09:26
Last Modified: 04 Sep 2025 09:45
DOI or ID number: 10.17645/si.9785
URI: https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/27096
View Item View Item
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)