Microaggressions Experienced by Vocational High School Graduates in the Workplace

This study explores workplace discrimination against vocational high school graduates through the framework of microaggressions. In-depth interviews were conducted with 12 participants, and data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings are as follows. First, vocational high school graduates’ experiences of discrimination function as environmental microaggressions, shaped by their marginalization within companies, labor conditions imposed by employers, and government hiring policies. Second, microaggressions manifested in three forms: microassaults included verbal abuse and derogatory remarks about educational background; microinsults involved the devaluation of job performance, insults rooted in adultism, and expressions of second-class citizenship; microinvalidations appeared as denial of discrimination, assignment of trivial tasks accompanied by blame-shifting, and invalidation of their identity. Third, these experiences of microaggressions led participants to adopt both passive and active coping strategies, often accompanied by physical and psychological distress. Based on these findings, the study discusses practical and policy implications for supporting vocational high school graduates.