For young people, the end of secondary school represents a critical transition point. This article aims at understanding how schools support a particular group of disadvantaged students to transition into education, training, or employment. Drawing on a life-course perspective and with refugee-background African students as an empirical focus, this qualitative case study documents career support practices in nine government schools in the State of Victoria. The findings show that schools provide transition opportunities that support African students to envision their post-school educational and career trajectories. The arrangements include career planning, alternative pathways, and employment of community engagement officers. However, there are persisting challenges that impede this group of students from fully benefiting from these arrangements. The main barriers identified here are academic disengagement, doxic aspirations, misconceptions about qualifications, and low self-efficacy. The article also argues that the persistence of these challenges is attributable at least in part to such overlooked factors of engagement as institutional practices, student agency, and home environment.

对于年轻人而言，中学毕业是一个关键的过渡点。本文旨在了解学校如何支持特定群体的弱势学生过渡到教育，培训或就业。该定性案例研究借鉴了生命过程的观点，并以具有难民背景的非洲学生为经验重点，记录了维多利亚州9所公立学校的职业支持实践。调查结果表明，学校提供了过渡机会，支持非洲学生设想他们的课后教育和职业轨迹。这些安排包括职业规划，替代途径和雇用社区参与官员。但是，挑战依然存在阻碍了这一类学生从这些安排中充分受益。此处确定的主要障碍是学术投入，对自我的渴望，对学历的误解以及自我效能低下。文章还指出，这些挑战的持久性至少部分归因于诸如机构实践，学生代理和家庭环境之类的被忽视的参与因素。