Russian Youth Educational Choice Cultural Patterns: The Case of VET Choice

The aim of the study is to explore how adolescents make sense of various educational opportunities while making educational decision to go to college after grade 9. We seek to decipher which symbolic horizons adolescents derive from in order to shape their decision irrespective of grades or family SES. To do so, we draw on data from in-depth interviews collected in 2013 as part of the Trajectories in Education and Careers project. We find that, on the one hand, decisions about the choice of trajectory are not made randomly, solely because of grades, but at the same time they are not only rational. As a result, we identify 4 symbolic horizons of decision-making, which indicates the heterogeneity of cultural patterns of decision-making to leave school and go to college.