This report draws on the Youth in Transition surveys to present educational participation rates for various categories of Australian youth. The focus is on how educational experiences differ among the categories and on the way in which such differences may have changed over time. Chapter 2 describes the way in which educational participation of young people has changed--both in overall level and in the meaning of that participation. Chapter 3 examines these reasons for changes in overall level of educational participation: changes in the youth labor market, government policies, economic restructuring, demographic changes, and views of young people about education. Chapter 4 discusses the meaning of differences in rates of educational participation among young Australians and how these relate to the concept of equity. It is set in the context of a description of the structure of the tables presented in the subsequent chapters and the model that informs the multivariate analyses presented in those tables. Chapters 5-11 present and discuss the differences in educational participation among categories of a number of characteristics of young people and the way in which these differences have changed during the 1980s and 1990s. The characteristics are gender, socioeconomic status, country of birth, rural-urban location, state of schooling, type of school, and early school achievement. (Appendixes include data and analyses; notes to tables; and 136 references.) (YLB)