In spite of educational expansion, a considerable number of individuals are not able to participate in upper secondary and higher education in Mexico. The main purpose of this thesis is to examine the factors influencing individuals’ opportunities to make higher educational transitions in Mexico. These transitions are: participation in upper secondary education, completion of upper secondary education and progression to higher education. A parallel objective is to investigate the predictors of persons’ institutional location in the upper secondary level. It is argued that the majority of the international studies in the field of educational transitions, as well as most of the studies conducted for Mexico in this area, have focused on examining the chances of entering an educational level but less attention has been paid on examining the opportunities of concluding a given level of education. This dissertation explores the chances of completing upper secondary education and it incorporates school dropouts in the analysis of educational transitions. Another important purpose is to conduct interdisciplinary theoretical work. A theoretical framework composed of the capability approach, sociocultural reproduction theory and contemporary sociological perspectives on inequalities in education is used to operationalize key concepts and to provide possible explanations of persons’ decisions to participate in upper secondary and higher education. From the capability approach, human agency, preferences and rationality have influence on educational decision-making. From Bourdieu’s sociocultural reproduction theory, educational choices are not freely made because they are determined by cultural and socioeconomic constraints. Furthermore, drawing on the integrative theoretical framework several hypotheses are formulated and some of them are empirically tested using national survey data for Mexico: The School Dropouts Survey, 2011. The investigation adopts a quantitative methodology which includes the estimation of binomial and multinomial logistic regression models. This study found that the effects of ascriptive factors such as social and ethnic background, gender and geographical location vary for each school transition. In addition, some of these factors contribute to predict person’s location in academic and vocational pathways of upper secondary education. Nevertheless, individuals’ capacity to attain higher levels of schooling is not completely determined by structural-related aspects. This thesis found that agency and capability dimensions such as freedom to choose school, aspirations and persons’ preferences towards education are not only intrinsically valuable but instrumentally relevant for making higher educational transitions. Furthermore, the type of institution attended and academic performance matter for entering and completing upper secondary and for attending higher education. This thesis concludes that the degree to which structural factors, agency and capability dimensions and school experiences make an impact on individuals’ educational trajectories is significantly affected by specific institutional arrangements at each stage of education. Finally, the empirical evidence of this thesis has a number of important implications for educational policies in Mexico.

This research explored Chinese students‟ experiences of acquiring and practising academic literacies as required in their Master‟s programmes. To date, academic literacy studies in common with wider research on higher education students‟ learning have tended to focus on the experiences of undergraduate students, particularly in western universities. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by investigating the learning journeys of students who had gained a first degree in China and were undertaking postgraduate study in the UK. Data were collected from three-phases of semi-structured interview: at the beginning, at the halfway and the end of the teaching component prior to the Master‟s dissertation phrase. Each of the participants was drawn from one of three contrasting Master‟s programmes at the University of Edinburgh (Education, Finance and Investment, and Signal Processing and Communications) and participated in all three phases of interview. All eighteen participants‟ experiences are presented as case studies to bring their voices to the fore and acknowledge the complexity and individuality of their learning journeys. The research shows that five dimensions of transitions are significant and relevant to all the participants – transitions in language, pedagogical culture, subject, level of study, and living and learning abroad. The language barrier is particularly important both in itself as well as through its influence on other transitions, although all five transitions are in various respects interwoven. The extent to which the transitions are challenging differs across participants and programmes. The perspective of transitions does not therefore suffice to capture the richness of the Masters‟ students‟ journeys. Accordingly, the perspective of Masters‟ literacies is introduced as a powerful lens through which to explore the Chinese participants‟ learning experiences and challenges and how these are linked to their confidence in themselves as Master‟s students. Four academic literacy practices are viewed in this study as key components of Masters‟ literacies: autonomy in learning, subject discourses, critical and analytical thinking, and interaction with teachers and students. Finally, the conceptual, methodological and practical implications of these findings are explored.

Children of the Amazon. A cooperative work experience to improve the quality of early childhood education in the Amazon of PerúThis article describes and analyzes the experience of three years of implementation of the Amazon Children Project, which promoted the formation and strengthening of a social platform, formed by allies who energized the actions of the project.This collective effort had as main objective to contribute in the development and learning for children from 3 to 8 years, who live in Ashaninka´s communities in the central jungle from the improvement in the quality of education, facilitatingthe process of transition between educational levels. / La presente comunicación describe y analiza la experiencia de tres años de ejecución del Proyecto Niños de la Amazonía, la misma que tuvo como eje transversalla conformación y fortalecimiento de una plataforma social conformada por aliados que dinamizaron las acciones del proyecto. Este esfuerzo colectivo tuvo comoobjetivo principal contribuir en el desarrollo y aprendizaje de los niños y las niñas de 3 a 8 años de comunidades asháninkas de la selva central a partir de la mejora en la calidad educativa, facilitando los procesos de transición entre niveles educativos

Den här studien handlar om övergångar från förskola till skola för barn med intellektuell funktionsnedsättning. Syftet var att undersöka hur barnens vårdnadshavare, förskolelärare och lärare i mottagande skolor upplevde samverkan under övergångsprocessen. Totalt analyserades 47 enskilda intervjuer med vårdnadshavare, förskolelärare och skollärare inom åtta individuella övergångar. Dessa intervjuer genomfördes vid tre olika tidpunkter i förhållande till respektive övergång: före, under och efter övergången. Vid varje tidpunkt intervjuades respektive barns vårdnadshavare samt den pedagog som hade det pedagogiska ansvaret för barnet vid den aktuella tidpunkten. Resultatet av interpretativ fenomenologisk analys (IPA) visade på nio teman som sammanfattade respondenternas upplevelser av samverkan under övergångar. Dessa var a) ett möte mellan olika kompetenser och erfarenheter; b)ojämlikhet i ansvar, roller och delaktighet; c) likartad övergripande struktur men flexibilitet i arbetssätt d) utredningars otydliga roll i samverkan; e) fokus och prioriteringar: från trygghet till lärande; f) diskontinuitet och hoppfullhet i förändringsskedet g) svårigheter kring kommunikation efter skolstart - ett hinder för samverkan; h) tiden som begränsande faktor samt i) bemötande och attityder som betydelsefulla grunder för samverkan. Hur dessa teman manifesterades i praktiken under övergångarna upplevdes mycket olika. I studien framkom bland annat att barnets omsorg och trygghet prioriterades före andra frågor i samverkan, samt att förskolans roll i samverkansprocesser upplevdes som begränsad. Vårdnadshavarna beskrev övergångarna som en orolig och känslomässig period samt att de hade behövt ta ett alltför stort ansvar i övergångsprocessen. Framtida studier bör identifiera och studera övergångar som bedrivs mer systematiskt, för att undersöka vilken betydelse samverkan har i sådana fall. / This is a study of collaboration during transitions from preschool to school for children with intellectual disability. The aim was to investigate how the children’s parents, preschool teachers and receiving school teachers experience collaboration in the transition process. A total of 47 individual interviews with parents, preschool teachers and receiving school teachers before, during and after eight individual transitions were analyzed. At each time point the child’s parent and one pedagogue were interviewed. The results of an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) showed that the respondents experiences could be represented by nine themes: a) a meeting of different competences and experiences; b) inequalities in responsibility, roles and participation; c) similar overall structures but different practices; d) the unclear role of formal assessments in collaboration; e) focus and priorities: from a sense of security to learning; f) discontinuity and hope in times of change; g) communication problems after start of school – a hindrance for collaboration; h) time as a limiting factor; i) reception and attitudes as important bases for collaboration. The experiences of the participants varied a great deal as to how these themes manifested themselves in practice during the transitions. The study showed that the child’s care and sense of security was prioritized before other matters in collaboration, and that the preschool’s role in collaboration was viewed as limited. The parents described the transitions as troubling and emotional periods, and that they had had to take too much responsibility for the transition process. Future studies could identify and study transition processes done with a more systematic approach, to find out the role of collaboration in such cases.