Recipients of PSC Small Grant Awards

The aim of this work is to qualitatively investigate how and why the selection into the educational outcome occurs after a spell of unemployment. A small sample of twenty people will be interviewed to investigate the causal chain of events, and the rationale they used in making the choices that led them to filter into an educational institution instead of the competing risks of leaving the work force or returning to work. At the heart of this work is life course theory; particularly cumulative advantage/disadvantage theory which provides the demographic lens for the qualitative analysis in this proposed work (DiPrete 2006). This theory wrapped around an empirical reality will provide insight into one of the ways people are taking a proactive role in shaping their own fate after an the exogenous shock related to their unemployment.