Participative Cooperation During Educational Transition: Experiences of Young People With Disabilities in Austria

The results of international research studies show that early and careful planning, preparation, and implementation can contribute significantly to a successful transition from compulsory education to vocational training and employment. One key aspect in this respect is participative cooperation (i.e., involvement and active participation in the planning process), above all of the youths with disabilities themselves as the target group, but also of their parents. The project Cooperation for Inclusion in Educational Transitions of the Austrian Science Fund is the first Austrian project conducting research into participative cooperation. It aims to find out about and analyse the experiences of cooperation of youths with disabilities and their parents with professionals during the period of transition from education to vocational training and employment. Based on qualitative, longitudinal data material from the project, the present article illustrates the experiences of participative cooperation of the youths with disabilities who participated in the project along with their parents. Our main aim is to show the experiences reported by the interviewed youths and their parents concerning cooperation during the period of transition from education to employment. An additional goal is to provide impulses to improve the planning of vocational transition from education to employment in relation to the inclusion of youths with disabilities.