Sensitivity to initial conditions in school-to-work transition processes: criteria and stakes

Individual processes of school-to-work transition are influenced by social determinism, chance and individual strategies. The point is to clarify how these different influences are organised. Considering that the opposition between determinism and chance is central, the paper proposes an analysis based on deterministic chaos. First, on the basis of Lyapunov exponents, this paper proposes a method to measure sensitivity to initial conditions in school-to-work transition processes. Secondly, it is argued that the measure of sensitivity clarifies the debate on the roles respectively played by determinism, chance and strategy. The paper furthermore suggests that when it comes to counselling students individually and taking their specific situations into account, measuring sensitivity is more useful and suitable than studying the transitional process of a whole heterogeneous class. Therefore, global inquiries should better be reserved as tools for the management and the assessment of institutions and training programmes. Keywords Chaos, Inclusion process, Inclusion strategy, School-to-work transition, Sensitivity to initial conditions, Social determinism, Vocational inclusion