The notion of interactional competence : The IC-You project provides a laboratory for critically assessing to what extent a unified concept of competence is viable across both the settings under investigation and the disciplines involved, and hence makes important steps toward an interdisciplinary understanding of interactional competence.
The intercompatibility of qualitative research methodologies across disciplines : The IC-You project provides a fruitful ground for fostering the intercompatiblity of qualitative research methods across the different disciplines involved, in particular regarding the study of competence, practice and social representations.
The implementation of comparative analysis : The comparative micro-analyses that will be carried out will provide a substantial contribution toward assessing the heuristic value of comparison within qualitative research in the humanities and social sciences.
Broader impact
Societal relevance : The IC-You project offers a unique picture of the concrete experiences of young people at key moments in their transition from compulsory schooling to professional life. It opens a window on the way young people’s expertise and membership may be questioned or confirmed as part of larger institutional processes of educational or professional selection, and, in the end, social integration.
Education and training policy : The findings will provide the necessary empirical grounds for critically assessing how public schools, and also professional training, might become more successful in meeting the social and communicative needs that citizens face in the transition from school to the workplace.
Practical training : On a more practical level and based on long-standing contacts that the subproject leaders entertain with relevant training institutions, our findings, but also some of the empirical material collected in this project, may fruitfully feed into initial and continued training of teachers, therapists, professional trainers, and recruiters.
