Abstract
In a context where inclusive education policies continue to evolve, yet systemic and individual challenges persist, this study critically examined the career transitioning perceptions of South African secondary school learners in the Further Education and Training (FET) phase diagnosed with Specific Learning Disorder (SLD). As these learners prepare to navigate the complex terrain of Higher Education and Training (HET) and the workforce, the study foregrounds their lived experiences alongside the perspectives of the teachers who support them.
Guided by Schlossberg’s Transition Theory and Super’s Life-Span and Life-Space theoretical framework, this qualitative inquiry explored how career transitions are perceived, experienced, and emotionally negotiated. Rather than treating career transitioning as a singular or linear event, the study conceptualised it as a dynamic, socially embedded, and emotionally layered developmental process, highlighting the often-overlooked complexities shaping the post-secondary school career trajectories of neurodiverse youth with SLD.
Data were collected from two schools in the Gauteng Province, both serving learners in the FET phase who had been formally diagnosed with SLD. Employing a multi-method qualitative approach, the study drew on focus group interviews with learners, narrative-based collage sessions conducted across both school sites, and individual semi-structured interviews with teachers to explore how career transitioning is perceived and experienced by FET phase-exiting learners with SLD. The collage sessions provided a creative, reflective, and largely non-verbal medium through which learners externalised their career aspirations, transitional challenges, and emerging career identities, particularly valuable for those with difficulties in conventional verbal or written expression.
Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA) revealed five learner themes. These included navigating learning challenges, exploring aspirations, balancing constraints, drawing strength from role models and demonstrating resilience. Teacher themes reflected barriers in learners’ career transitions, evolving educator roles, the current climate of collaborative support systems and classroom-based strategies to empower transitioning learners. Together, these themes offered a nuanced understanding of the...