EDU-LAB — European Youth in Transition to Education and Labour
EDU-LAB Glossary
Shared terminology for education, training and youth transitions
A curated selection of key terms used across EDU-LAB, with the project’s working definition for each. Search a term, filter by theme, or browse the alphabetical index.
A
Activation policy
A3 · Policy & effectsA labour-market or education measure that steers young people quickly towards employment, training or job-search activity.
Anonymisation and pseudonymisation
Ethics & dataTwo data-protection techniques — anonymisation permanently removes identifiers so a person can no longer be identified; pseudonymisation replaces them so re-identification is possible only with separately held information.
Defined in the project's Ethics Issues Management Plan (D7.1) with reference to the GDPR; in EDU-LAB, collected data are pseudonymised for processing and anonymised for analysis and outputs.
Assessment dimensions (OSES-Delphi)
Expert knowledgeThe five criteria on which experts rate each Delphi statement: desirability, importance for policymakers, conflict potential for society, and likelihood of realisation within five and within fifteen years.
Rated on a five-point Likert scale with a 'cannot judge' option; the gap between how desirable and how likely a trend is read as a normative signal.
C
CEDEFOP chart
A1 · Structural pathwaysCedefop's scheme of the legally allowed pathways and transitions ('possible progression routes') within a national system of general education and PVET from ISCED level 2 upward.
WP1 uses the charts as the source of legally allowed transitions (LATETs) and as a basis for comparing the structure of national systems.
Choices, pathways and transitions
A1 · Structural pathwaysThe project's central object of study: the decisions young people aged 15–30 make and the routes they follow through education and training, and from education and training into the labour market.
Used as a fixed phrase across the project; WP4 examines the intersecting factors that hinder or enable them, while WP1 and WP3A model and measure them.
Co-construction of solutions
Youth voiceThe joint development of practical solutions by young people and researchers, addressing barriers the participants themselves have faced in their transitions.
The aim of the WP4 Participatory Workshops; young people are treated as co-creators of knowledge, not as subjects, so a solution is co-designed rather than proposed for them.
Comparability
Quantitative dataThe degree to which findings can be meaningfully compared across countries, years or groups.
The project separates statistical comparability (harmonised indicators) from conceptual comparability (whether a category means the same thing across systems); ensuring comparable data across the seven WP4 countries and twelve locations was a core concern.
Consensus and controversy
Expert knowledgeThe extent to which the expert panel agrees or divides on a Delphi statement, measured through central tendency and spread (median and inter-quartile range).
WP3B tracks how agreement shifts between waves; the second wave yields a convergence typology describing where and how positions moved.
Critical systematic literature review
A3 · Policy & effectsA structured, criteria-based review of existing evidence, here on the effectiveness and efficiency of policies supporting youth transitions.
The method of WP2 (D2.1); it identifies not only what is known but the data and information gaps, including why some policy effects are not achieved.
D
Data and information gaps
Quantitative dataPoints where the data or knowledge needed to describe pathways, transitions, determinants or policy effects is missing, incomplete or not comparable.
The organising frame of the first-year analytical deliverables (D1.1, D2.1, D3.1): each maps what its evidence base can and cannot yet show.
Data availability matrix
Quantitative dataA mapping of which determinants and transitions are covered by which datasets, and how well.
Produced in WP3A after variable mapping; it shows where a determinant is measured, only partly measured, or absent, and so guides which research questions are answerable.
Data Management Plan (DMP)
Ethics & dataThe document describing the data life cycle — collection, processing, storage, protection, retention and destruction — for all datasets used or generated by the project.
Project deliverable D7.2, updated across the project (D7.3); compliance is monitored by the Ethics Issues Group.
Dataset inventory and selection
Quantitative dataThe identification, description and screening of available quantitative datasets against selection criteria, to decide which will feed the analysis.
The first WP3A step (D3.1), also undertaken in WP1; each dataset is classified by coverage, time frame, regularity and the determinants it can measure.
Delphi method (policy Delphi)
Expert knowledgeA structured, multi-round expert survey that seeks reasoned, cross-national judgements on an uncertain future rather than a single forecast.
The core of WP3B; run as a two-wave OSES with feedback between waves, combining quantitative consensus measurement with qualitative interpretation.
Determinant
A1 · Structural pathwaysA factor associated with education, transition or labour-market outcomes for young people.
WP1 groups determinants into access, general selection, participation, and progression-and-completion; the term is used both conceptually (a factor in the model) and operationally (a measurable variable), and the synthesis keeps the two aligned.
Disadvantage
A2 · IntersectionalityA social, economic, educational or institutional condition that reduces a young person's opportunities in education, training or work.
Read intersectionally in the project — overlapping disadvantages that compound rather than simply add; WP2 warns that policies can widen the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged youth.
Dissemination, exploitation and outreach
Communication & impactActivities that share project results, put them to use, and engage audiences — the remit of WP6.
Dissemination spreads findings; exploitation turns them into usable results (see Key Exploitable Result); outreach builds engagement with stakeholder clusters through defined channels and messages.
E
Early leaving from education and training (ELET)
A1 · Structural pathwaysYoung people aged 18–24 with at most lower-secondary education who are not in further education or training.
A status (stock) measure, not a single event; reducing early school leaving is one of the project's stated policy targets.
Edited volume (concluding volume)
Synthesis & methodThe project's summarising book, bringing together the main methodological approaches and key results across all work packages.
Initially conceived as a monograph and developed as an edited volume; D5.1A sets out its annotated outline and the allocation of chapters across work packages.
Effectiveness and efficiency
A3 · Policy & effectsTwo linked policy criteria: effectiveness is the degree to which a policy achieves its intended results; efficiency is the relation between the inputs or investment used and the results obtained.
WP2 treats them together and separately measures each; it attends to the gap between policy intention and outcome, including unintended effects.
Equity and inclusion
A2 · IntersectionalityThe project's guiding concern that education, training and labour-market systems give all young people, especially the disadvantaged, a fair chance to participate, progress and complete.
A stated focus across the project rather than a single indicator; WP4 advances it methodologically by treating young people as co-producers of knowledge.
Ethics Issues Group (EIG)
Ethics & dataThe consortium body (within WP7) that oversees all ethical aspects of the research, including compliance with ethical guidelines, the Data Management Plan and the GDPR.
Reviews data-collection tools and procedures case by case and, where needed, consults national data-protection authorities.
European Education Area (EEA)
A4 · Cross-national variationThe EU policy framework for cooperation in education and training; in EDU-LAB it also denotes the geographic scope of the comparative analysis.
In the project's usage EEA means the European Education Area — not the European Economic Area.
Exploratory Expert Interview (EEI)
Expert knowledgeA semi-structured interview with a domain expert, used to surface themes and issues before the Delphi survey is designed.
The first empirical step of WP3B; the interviews are translated into the statements that experts later rate in the Delphi waves.
F
Focus Group (FG)
Youth voiceA facilitated group discussion around set topics, used to explore young people's views, experiences and expectations about their transitions.
A WP4 instrument (8–10 groups of 6–8 participants per case-study location); the entry point for participants who may then join the Participatory Workshops.
G
General education (GE) and PVET
A1 · Structural pathwaysThe two main strands of the systems studied: general education, and professional and vocational education and training (also written VET).
The GE/PVET distinction structures much of the project's analysis of pathways, transitions and permeability; delivery modes range from mainly school-based to mainly employer-based.
I
Informed consent
Ethics & dataA freely given, specific and informed agreement to take part in the research, obtained in the participant's own language before data collection begins.
Participation is voluntary and withdrawable at any time without consequence; for the vulnerable group of minors aged 15–17 the project applies additional protective measures.
Intended and unintended effects
A3 · Policy & effectsThe results a policy or investment was designed to produce, and the further consequences — positive or negative — that were not intended.
A central WP2 concern: the review looks not only at whether intended effects occur but at unintended ones and at why some intended effects are not achieved.
Intersectional determinants
A2 · IntersectionalityMultiple, overlapping factors — such as socio-economic background, gender, migration background and disability — that interact to shape a young person's pathways and transitions.
The project holds the compounding sense (disadvantages that multiply, not merely add); WP1 identifies the determinants and WP3A tests how far datasets can measure them.
ISCED
A1 · Structural pathwaysInternational Standard Classification of Education — the shared scale for education levels; the project focuses on ISCED levels 3–8.
The comparability backbone of the analysis; where national qualifications map imperfectly onto ISCED, the project flags it.
K
Key Exploitable Result (KER)
Communication & impactA specific project output identified as having value that can be taken up and used beyond the project.
A WP6 planning concept; identifying KERs shapes the exploitation and outreach strategy.
L
Legally Allowed Transition in Education and Training (LATET)
A1 · Structural pathwaysA move between education levels or tracks that a national system formally permits, taken from the Cedefop charts.
WP1 distinguishes generic LATETs (common across systems) from non-generic ones (system-specific), and complements them with transitions to and from the labour market that the charts do not cover.
Lived experience (youth voice)
Youth voiceYoung people's first-person accounts and insider knowledge of their own choices, pathways and transitions, treated as primary evidence.
WP4's guard against tokenistic participation: lived expertise is integrated with academic and expert evidence in the synthesis rather than used as illustration.
M
Mixed-methods approach
Synthesis & methodThe project's overall design, combining secondary quantitative analysis of large datasets with newly collected qualitative and expert evidence.
Quantitative (WP3A), expert (WP3B) and qualitative (WP4) strands are integrated in WP5; the Delphi itself is a sequential mixed-methods design.
N
NEET
A1 · Structural pathwaysA young person neither in employment nor in education or training.
Reported with the age band stated (15–24 or 15–29) and unpacked into components, since a single rate combines very different situations; WP2 cautions against focusing only on job-ready NEETs.
O
Online Survey of Experts and Stakeholders (OSES)
Expert knowledgeThe WP3B policy-Delphi instrument: a transnational, multi-wave online survey gathering structured cross-national expert judgements on the future of youth transitions.
Combines quantitative consensus measurement with qualitative interpretation; its output feeds EU- and country-level policy formats such as policy briefs and toolkits.
Operationalisation
Quantitative dataTurning a conceptual determinant or outcome into a concrete, measurable variable in a given dataset.
A key WP3A step: the same concept may be operationalised differently across datasets, which affects whether findings are truly comparable.
P
Participatory Action Research (PAR)
Youth voiceA research approach in which participants help shape the enquiry and are recognised as producers of knowledge, aimed at co-designing change.
Underpins the WP4 case studies; it moves beyond top-down, adult-centric perspectives and gives weight to young people's priorities and agency.
Participatory Workshop (PW)
Youth voiceA workshop in which young people identify key challenges and co-develop original solutions, run as a chain of four consecutive sessions after the focus groups.
A WP4 instrument (6–8 chains of four per location, 5–7 participants each), spaced to allow preliminary analysis to feed the next session.
Personal and sensitive data
Ethics & dataPersonal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable person; sensitive data is a special category (e.g. health, ethnic origin, beliefs) needing stronger protection.
Defined in D7.1 following the GDPR; the project's data minimisation principle means only data adequate, relevant and strictly necessary are collected.
Policies, programmes and investments
A3 · Policy & effectsThe objects of WP2's assessment: policy decisions, the concrete programmes that enact them, and the financial investment behind them.
WP2 deliberately defines each, because conflating a policy, its programme and its funding obscures where effectiveness or efficiency actually breaks down.
Policy Brief
Communication & impactA short, accessible document translating project findings into evidence-based messages and recommendations for a defined audience.
Produced from Year One (D5.1B) alongside discussion notes and good-practice examples, and disseminated through WP6 channels.
R
Research synthesis and integration
Synthesis & methodThe work of drawing the project's quantitative, expert and qualitative strands into a coherent account and set of recommendations.
The task of WP5; it integrates theoretical considerations, empirical findings and youth perspectives, and feeds the edited volume and policy materials.
Research-Practice Partnership (RPP)
Youth voiceA sustained, trust-based collaboration between researchers and participants set up to investigate practice and policy problems together.
The framing of the WP4 case studies (after Coburn & Penuel); it commits partners to shared problem-definition and to impact beyond the project's immediate scope.
S
Secondary data analysis
Quantitative dataAnalysis of existing, openly available large-scale datasets rather than newly collected data.
The quantitative backbone of WP1 and WP3A; it is paired with newly collected qualitative (WP4) and expert (WP3B) data in the project's mixed-methods design.
Sociodemographic Survey (SDS)
Youth voiceA short questionnaire capturing participants' background characteristics — such as gender, education level, employment status and socio-economic status.
A WP4 instrument; its data become participant descriptors in the qualitative analysis, supporting comparison within and across case studies.
Stakeholder
Communication & impactAn actor with an interest in or influence on youth transitions — policymakers, practitioners, educators, employers, civil-society bodies and young people themselves.
Stakeholders are both a source of evidence (the OSES expert panel) and an audience for results (the WP6 outreach clusters); the project maps them into defined groups.
Structured Diary (SD)
Youth voiceA guided self-report in which participants record their reflections, activities and experiences over time and in context.
A WP4 instrument used during (SD1) and between (SD2) the Participatory Workshops to capture first-person data as it unfolds. (Note: in WP3B reporting, 'SD' denotes standard deviation.)
W
Work-based learning (WBL)
A1 · Structural pathwaysLearning that takes place in, or through, the workplace, ranging from short placements to sustained, contract-based training.
Treated as a matter of intensity rather than a yes/no; expanding WBL opportunities is one of the project's stated aims, and it recurs across the WP1 transition types.
Y
Youth transitions
A1 · Structural pathwaysYoung people's movement through education and training and into the labour market and adulthood — often non-linear, with reversals, interruptions and overlaps.
WP2 notes the term is used loosely in the literature and pins down its meaning for the project; an interrupted route is not read as a failed one.
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Abbreviations and acronyms used across EDU-LAB and in this glossary.
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WP2 flags a recurring unintended effect: short-term activation can push young people into precarious pathways and favour job-ready unemployed NEETs over inactive or hard-to-reach youth.