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Substantial social stratification research conceptualizes education as a series of standard transitions from one stage to the next, such as from high school to college. Yet less research examines mandatory transitions within each educational stage, which we call "intermediate educational transitions." In this article, we examine a crucial intermediate transition in U.S. higher education, shifting from an undeclared to a declared major by major declaration deadlines, to provide a novel perspective on educational transitions. Bridging theoretical approaches from symbolic interactionism, social stratification, structural functionalism, and neo-institutionalism, we argue that successful major declaration transitions depend on students' individual-level alignment between socially structured actions and culturally informed goals and organization-level alignment between organizational intentions and organizational actions. We use longitudinal interview data paired with 4.5 years of administrative records to assess this argument, finding that both individual- and organization-level alignment contribute to whether students experience seamless, stalled and restarted, or persistently stalled major declaration transitions. We further find that access to compensatory college organizational support determines whether stalled students can restart their major declaration trajectories. These findings indicate that colleges and universities can help to mitigate inequality in intermediate transitions by providing timely, high-quality support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The institutional move associated with embarking upon post-16 study is part of the learner journey taken by many young people in England, including those from widening participation (WP) backgrounds. However, it can present a challenge, although one that has received comparatively little attention from researchers, practitioners and policy makers. To understand the nature of the challenge, this article draws on the experiences of two groups of WP students: those yet to experience this move and their older counterparts who have made the transition. It is also from the same two groups that suggestions are made for how the move from school to college can be supported. The English regulator for higher education, the Office for Students, has asked universities to work more closely with schools in widening access. The evidence presented here highlights the importance of universities, and those overseeing outreach, developing strong working relations with colleges as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the study of mechanisms of parental responsibilisation and involvement that solidify unequal educational opportunities and camouflage these, especially from pupils. Drawing on data from Zurich, the biggest city in Switzerland, the authors find that parental responsibilisation plays a crucial role in ensuring that class-based educational inequalities remain unrecognised by pupils at the selective educational transition from primary to secondary education after sixth grade. This article uses an ethnography with children and their families from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds in Zurich to analyse the impact of parents’ and teachers’ practices on pupils’ understanding of educational and other inequalities. The children were preparing for the highly selective entrance exam in the hope of transitioning to the most prestigious secondary school track, the only one that grants unrestricted access to university. The paper argues that class-based inequalities are both intentionally and unintentionally camouflaged from pupils in two ways: first, through the normalisation of strong parental involvement in their children’s education, which is presented as the norm, and second, through parents’ and teachers’ practices of hiding the impact that parental involvement, which differs by social class, has on children’s chances at this transition. Language-based educational inequalities are negotiated in primary schools and families and recognised by pupils, but class-based educational inequalities remain largely unrecognised by pupils. This reinforces their belief in a meritocratic transition that offers almost equal chances for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For those experiencing them, educational transitions include not only the present time but are embedded within institutions that precede and extend beyond the individuals. This article explores how, as an institutional space, the early childhood education and care (ECEC) setting is (re)produced within young children's encounters with others during a transition period. Video-recorded observations of three infant-toddlers' first months of attendance to an ECEC setting were analysed following analytic induction and video interaction analysis. Two examples illustrating object ownership negotiations are discussed. The results show that, in their encounters with others, newcomers actively contributed to (re)producing the ECEC setting by advancing their own understandings of objects and ownership, practicing their own ways of being with objects. Moreover, the results indicate that teachers' contributions strongly influenced the outcomes of the encounters and, consequently, the constitution of shared understandings of objects and object ownership within the ECEC setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To clarify, in a national sample, associations between risk for seven psychiatric and substance use disorders and five key transitions in Sweden's public educational system. Methods: Swedish-born individuals (1972–1995, N = 1 997 910) were followed through 12-31-2018, at mean age 34.9. We predicted, from these educational transitions, risk for major depression (MD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), bipolar disorder (BD), schizophrenia (SZ), anorexia nervosa (AN), alcohol use disorder (AUD), and drug use disorder (DUD), assessed from Swedish national registers, by Cox regression, censoring individuals with onsets ⩽17. We also predicted risk from the deviation of grades from family-genetic expectations (deviation 1) and from changes in grades from ages 16 to 19 (deviation 2). Results: We observed four major risk patterns across transitions in our disorders: (i) MD and BD, (ii) OCD and SZ, (iii) AUD and DUD, and (iv) AN. Failing early educational transitions had the greatest impact on risk for OCD and SZ while for other disorders, not progressing from basic to upper high school had the largest effect. Completing vocational v. college-prep upper high school was strongly associated with risk for AUD and DUD, had little relation with MD, OCD, BD, and SZ risk, and was protective for AN. Deviation 1 predicted risk most strongly for SZ, AN, and MD. Deviation 2 predicted risk most strongly for SZ, AUD, and DUD. Conclusions: The pattern of educational transitions and within family and within person development deviations are strongly and relatively specifically associated with future risk for seven psychiatric and substance-use disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about the role of agency in transitions in tracked education systems or whether it varies by socioeconomic background. This study addressed this gap by estimating structural equation models based on longitudinal data that are representative of the German- and French-speaking parts of Switzerland (N = 1273 individuals, surveyed from age 6 to 18, mean age at wave 1: Mage = 6.54, SDage = 0.50, female = 49%). The findings reveal that agency (captured by study effort and occupational aspirations) and socioeconomic background (measured by parental education and family income) significantly predicted students' transitions to academically demanding tracks in lower- and upper-secondary education. In the transition to upper-secondary education, students with fewer socioeconomic resources benefitted less than their more advantaged peers from ambitious aspirations, but they benefitted more from exerting effort. These findings suggest that both an optimistic forward-looking orientation and the exertion of effort are required to make it to an academic track. Effort may serve as a "substitutive" resource for less socioeconomically advantaged students, whereas ambitious aspirations may enhance the positive effect of family socioeconomic resources on academic educational trajectories. Overall, the evidence from this study calls for greater attention to investigating not only how agency shapes adolescents' educational trajectories and opportunities but also how its role differs across social groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integration from science allows students to give meaning to the learning of certain topics from different points of view. This work, contextualized in multi-grade classrooms working in environments, evaluates the level of integration detected in an activity on minerals and the perception of the participating teachers on the strengths and difficulties observed in this integration. For this purpose, the application of the activity has been analyzed using a researcher's notebook, recordings made during the assemblies and the use of an open questionnaire in which the participating teachers were asked questions related to the strengths and difficulties detected. The results show a level of interdisciplinary integration that is perceived by most of the participating teachers. Regarding the declared strengths, the teachers detect that the learning acquired about minerals during the design process has contributed to increase to a certain extent their confidence in the subject matter. However, they detect as problematic to find connections with some disciplines, partly due to their perception of the knowledge on the subject. They consider external and peer support, as well as the presence of literature on the teaching of minerals, to be essential in order to develop the activity from an integrated approach. These results, collected in other contexts, are discussed, widening fronts on which to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of working by environments in the first educational stages in order to achieve integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the support given by schools to students who are likely to leave Swedish compulsory education without the grades required to enter upper secondary education (USE). The aim is to increase knowledge about career counselors' and teachers' strategies and work in lower secondary schools in order to facilitate this critical transition, and to examine factors influencing this support. It takes as its starting point theoretical frameworks stressing the agency of professionals in welfare organizations, and the importance of support during the educational transitions of young people at risk. The paper builds on interviews with 20 teachers and career counselors in six municipalities of varying character. Teachers' and career counselors' micro-choices have a major impact on the support provided to students. Their work consists of direct and indirect support, with the former referring to prescribed professional assignments. Indirect support, taking the form of advocacy, relational, and emotional work, is not officially recognized, but appears to be a necessary precondition for the direct support. The transition seems to be at risk of becoming overly fragile unless the support is characterized by sustained collaboration between school actors in compulsory school, and between compulsory and USE levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a reflection on the tensions between play, education, and learning in early childhood, this article aims to identify and analyze the factors that limit or negatively condition the possibilities for play at school during the transition between early childhood education and primary education in Chile. The study was conducted in four Chilean schools, with the transition levels of Chilean early childhood education (children aged 4 and 5) and the first two levels of primary education (children aged 6 and 7). Based on an ethnographic approach, we combined 22 ethnographic observation days spread over two consecutive years and 59 interviews of various types with children, educators, and parents. The results show structural and material limitations on school play that mainly affect children in primary education. Beyond, factors associated with routines, indications, and statements governing functioning and participation in this level tend to limit or prevent play, often considered a "non-legitimate" activity. Conclusions highlight the potentialities that children's restricted or resisted play can present in terms of learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses educational transitions under conditions of multiple insecurities. By analyzing empirical data of two research projects with youths in Afghanistan and refugee students in Austria, we show how young peoplemake sense of the social and educational inequalities they encounter on their educational pathways within different national, socio‐political, and institutional contexts. We present in‐depth analyses of two cases to elaborate how young people in different parts of the world conceive of their futures when basic security needs are not met, and how they make sense of the social and educational inequalities they face during their transition processes. After living through repeatedly fractured perspectives, young people have to make sense of their biographical experiences and continuously (re)design their plans while facing uncertain futures. In the Afghan Youth Project, we reconstructed a collective—and morally charged—biographical orientation of future plans. This orientation can also be understood as a critical response to persistent fragility and inequality and suggests an imagined generational hold and sense of belonging. In the Austrian project Translating Wor(l)ds, we reconstructed continuing experiences of educational exclusion, marginalization, and devaluation in different migration societies throughout refugee routes. Educational transitions, which can be challenging for all young people, take on special relevance under these conditions. Combining biographical and socio‐psychological research perspectives allows us to reconstruct educational processes as cumulative, non‐linear processes and to reveal the ambiguities, contradictions, and ruptures woven into them, as well as the subjects’ constructions of sense and agency.

During their transition from lower to upper secondary education, young peoplemake educational and occupational choices driven by their aspirations. Such aspirations are shaped by the individuals’ social environment, their idea of what seems achievable and desirable, and their experiences. Therefore, aspirations can change during the transitional phase. In this article, we explore the development of educational and occupational aspirations of young people over three years. At the start of the study period, the students were attending the lower track in lower secondary education, the so‐called Neue Mittelschule (8th grade), in the city of Vienna in the 2017–2018 academic year. Drawing on the panel survey data (2018–2020) of the Pathways to the Future project, we simultaneously explore stability and change of educational and occupational aspirations. We describe different patterns of change in aspirations and analyse the influence of sociodemographic characteristics and prior achievement on these patterns. Using latent transition analysis, we identify 11 patterns of aspirations with important differences depending on social background. Most of the students have stable aspirations. However, the results show that school performance, migration background, and the level of parental education play important roles in explaining different levels and patterns of aspirations over time. These longitudinal analyses of educational and occupational aspirations provide important insights into the transition process.

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The division of educational systems into different tracks—academic and vocational—represents one of the key elements in explaining social stratification and inequalities. Previous research identifies teachers' expectations as a critical factor to understand the relationship between tracking and social inequality. This paper discusses how ability is represented in teachers' discourses and whether and to what extent it works as a legitimation of systemic forms of tracking. Using in‐depth interviews with 35 secondary school tutors, we analyse how teachers draw on the concept of ability to explain students' unequal transitions from a lower comprehensive to an upper tracked education system in Barcelona (Spain). The results indicate three main elements: a highly naturalistic conception of students' abilities among teachers; a remarkably dichotomised conception of theoretical and practical abilities that match with the academic and vocational tracks; and a direct association between types of student and types of track based on different types of ability at a cognitive, behavioural and personal level. Overall, the analysis contributes to opening the 'black box' of the notion of ability as represented by teachers and to identifying what we call the 'mechanisms of misrecognition' which serve to naturalise, legitimise and reproduce a highly segmented post‐16 school system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing attention to the relationships between transitions, power, spaces, and schooling, this article explores the disjuncture between seemingly liberal concepts in transition processes and hierarchical abuse of power. This ethnographic study sought to explore the perspectives of 16 children as they transitioned from one 'early learning and childcare centre', Lilybank, to four Scottish primary schools. Participant observations and face-to-face interviews were conducted in the formal educational settings and children's homes. Overall, the study found that the perspectives of children can often be silenced by educational professionals or overshadowed and undermined by procedures. Children were expected to become acquiescent as they adjusted to coercive practices that limited children's access to spaces in the school. The results suggest a need for a commitment to listening approaches, which may encourage educationalists to become respectful and responsive to children's transition discourses and subsequent social realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we analyse the narratives of Finnish young people regarding their educational choices for upper secondary education in a theoretical framework inspired by Bourdieu's forms of capital and Skeggs' concept of the classed value of self. Our data consist of interviews with 66 ninth-graders, produced in the Youth in Time research project. In the narratives, we identified six frames of choice between general upper secondary and vocational education and outside formal education. We also recognized that there was hesitation and various strategies that young people utilized in making their educational choices, based on their social and cultural capitals. Young people become aware of their value in the educational market through this process of making their choice. Their educational choices are complex and intertwined with gender, social class, social relations, racialization and locality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High school is an institution where teens spend a large part of their time. Consequently, in this context, a dense network of relationships tends to be formed during the period of study at the institute. However, at the end of secondary school, this set of contextualized relationships begins to disintegrate. In this study, we analyze the transition from high school to university of a cohort of high school students. First, we interviewed all the students who were in their last year of high school at an institute in the province of Seville (n = 69). A year and a half later, we interviewed them again when many of them were already studying at university (n = 57). Using a hybrid research design, we collected personal network data from each interviewee in the context of a longitudinal whole network design of the entire cohort analyzed. The results show a decrease in the structural cohesion of the networks, both for personal networks and for the complete network. Furthermore, less cohesive personal networks seem more likely to experience short-term changes in ecological transition processes. In the discussion we reflect on the impact of educational transitions on friendship relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared to natives, young adults with an immigrant background are more likely to choose academic education over vocational education and training (VET). Our study investigates ethnic choice effects at different stages of the educational system. Based on longitudinal data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), we found that immigrant youths–when controlling for achievement and social background–were more likely to attend academic tracks in Grade 9, have higher participation rates in academic tracks at the upper-secondary level, are less likely to choose VET after lower-secondary education as well as after upper-secondary education, and switch more often to higher education after achieving an upper-secondary degree. Mediation analyses confirmed that these effects were largely shaped by differences in educational and occupational aspirations. Our study provides detailed insights into the transition pathways at different educational stages and the relevant mechanisms driving migration-specific choice effects. As ethnic choice effects are empirically well documented in international research, our investigation may contribute to a deeper understanding of educational inequalities in other European countries.

How well emerging adults adapt to transitions, like entering or graduating from post-secondary education, may depend on individual differences. Emotional wellbeing within post-secondary education contexts has been studied, but little research has examined patterns of change after graduation. A diverse sample of emerging adults in their final year of university (N = 159; Mage = 23.22) were surveyed at four time points starting prior to and then across the year after graduation. Most participants (58%) showed stable, low depressive symptoms, a small percentage (9%) decreased in depressive symptoms, and a sizeable group (32%) increased in depressive symptoms. Low or decreasing depressive symptoms were associated with higher baseline optimism and grit and lower neuroticism and with qualitative accounts of willingness to learn from setbacks, self-efficacy, and gratitude for the university experience. Mixed-methods results highlight the challenges and role of self-regulatory strengths for adjustment at this juncture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a vast literature on the causes and consequences of leaving school prematurely, little scholarly and policy attention has been paid to those who re-enter education after a temporary withdrawal. Re-enrolment is often portrayed in the literature as an active act of agency requiring inner drive. Based on 18 interviews with young early school leavers and re-enrolees in Norway, we construct two empirically founded re-enrolment narratives: 'opposing otherness through dreams of ordinariness' and 'accepting the rules of the game—re-enrolment as a fragile opportunity'. Although embracing and reproducing the discourse about educational credentials as being the key to a happy life, the narratives do not support the idea of a re-enrolment drive as being vital to succeed within educational institutions. While they aspire for normality and believe normality is achieved through educational credentials, they are in need of a support system that either accommodates their individual needs, or nudges them back 'on right track'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on human capital and institutional theory, this article investigates whether transitions into professional education depend on institutional characteristics of the preceding initial vocational education and training program. The empirical analyses make use of the SLFS data. They show that vertically non­differentiated initial vocational education and training programs with high shares of vocational school and standardized final exams increase the probability to enter professional education.

Based on a reflection on the tensions between play, education, and learning in early childhood, this article aims to identify and analyze the factors that limit or negatively condition the possibilities for play at school during the transition between early childhood education and primary education in Chile. The study was conducted in four Chilean schools, with the transition levels of Chilean early childhood education (children aged 4 and 5) and the first two levels of primary education (children aged 6 and 7). Based on an ethnographic approach, we combined 22 ethnographic observation days spread over two consecutive years and 59 interviews of various types with children, educators, and parents. The results show structural and material limitations on school play that mainly affect children in primary education. Beyond, factors associated with routines, indications, and statements governing functioning and participation in this level tend to limit or prevent play, often considered a “non-legitimate” activity. Conclusions highlight the potentialities that children’s restricted or resisted play can present in terms of learning.

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This article analyses the evolution of inequality in educational opportunities over the 20th century in Spain, incorporating more information regarding students' personal and family characteristics than in other studies. This approach allows us to control for possible selection bias in educational transition models, in which many students are left out of analyses as transitions are made to higher levels of education, leading to results that cannot be extrapolated to the general population. A survey from Spain's Centre for Sociological Research (CIS) is used along with logistical regression models. Controlling for this bias, it is found that inequalities in educational opportunities have remained constant, although inequality in finishing obligatory education among agricultural classes decreased from the middle of the century, possibly the result of the universalisation of obligatory education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie ( KZfSS) is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Effectively maintained inequality theory posits that a reduction in vertical inequality following the expansion of a level of education will be compensated by an increase in horizontal inequality. Although this theory has been intensely studied in various countries, it has barely been explored in the Spanish case. To fill this gap, I use data from the Survey on the Transition from Education/Training to Labour Market Insertion and analyse the sample of students who completed compulsory education in 2001, right after the expansion of upper secondary education (baccalaureate) in Spain. I study two forms of horizontal inequality: the type of education enrolled in (including which modality is preferred in the academic track) and the time for completion of the academic track. I report that the saturation of baccalaureate in the choice against vocational education triggered substantial inequalities in the preference for the most rewarding modalities of baccalaureate: socioeconomically advantaged students preferred the natural sciences and technology, while disadvantaged students preferred the social sciences, humanities, and arts. In turn, inequality in the time for completion of baccalaureate is mostly vertical as the two most likely results for all socioeconomic groups are to complete baccalaureate in two years or not complete it at all.

The article outlines the existing practices of developing learning which are being implemented in educational institutions of the Russian Federation since 1998 to the present day, taking into account modern trends and challenges to the world education: individualization and personalization; digitalization, networking, collaboration (cooperation, team work); interdisciplinary content of education as a norm; metacompetency as a result of education; smart learning in the era of the information society with the availability of communication technologies and team work; gamification as an introduction to learning educational games, etc. To all these challenges and trends of the modern reality, the educational system of D.B. Elkonin—V.V. Davydov has its own ‘answers’, through certain practices that are realized in the network of classes and schools of developmental learning in Russia. In addition, we describe new projects that can be viewed as a resource for the development of the Russian educational system.

The aim of this study was to study children’s transitions from preschool to school in two municipalities in Sweden and also activities that were intended to make these transitions effective. A mixed method approach and a multiple-case study design were used. The result showed that children’s transitions from preschool to school differed, that several transition activities were performed, that transition activities were general or extra and also proximal or distal – seen from a child perspective. Several development areas appeared as being particularly important when working towards improvement of preschool-school transitions.

The focus of this contribution is on the targeted transition practices of career guidance and on the opportunity structures they frame for young people with immigrant backgrounds and/or special educational needs. By analysing curricular documents and interviews with representatives from the local education authorities, such as administrators, principals, guidance counsellors and special education teachers (n = 16), we aim to examine critically the options provided for these groups of young people. We conclude that targeted transition practices do not recognise enough the heterogeneity of young people, and can therefore be limitative and exclusive.

Complementing widely used explanatory models in the educational sciences that pinpoint the resources and characteristics for explaining students’ distinct educational transitions, this paper departs from methodological traditions and evaluates the predictive power of established concepts: to what extent can we actually predict school track enrollment based on a plethora of well-known explanatory factors derived from previous research? Predictive models were established using recursive partitioning adopted from machine learning. The basis for the analyses was the unique Zurich Learning Progress Study in Switzerland, a longitudinal study that followed a sample of 2000 students throughout compulsory education. This paper presents an exemplary examination of predictive modeling, and encourages educational sciences in general to explore beyond the horizon of their disciplinary methodological standards, which may help to consider the limits of an exclusive focus on explanatory approaches. The results provide an insight into the predictive capacity of well-established educational measures and concepts in predicting school track enrollment. The results show that there is quite a bit we cannot explain in educational navigation at the very end of elementary education. Yet, predictive misclassifications mainly occur between adjacent school tracks. Very few misclassifications in the future enrollment of academic-track and basic-track students, i.e., those pursuing the most- and least-prestigious tracks, respectively, occur.

The transition from home care to early childhood education and care (ECEC) is a period of intense change and development in young children's socio-spatial worlds. This article focuses on infant–teacher lap interactions during this transition period. This investigation applies a relational approach to the study of infant–teacher lap interactions. In doing so, it highlights the inherently social and contextual nature of interaction. From a relational perspective, actors, context, and situation are seen as constitutive of each other, and their interrelationality is considered central to the emergence of interactions. The data, regarding infants' first months attending ECEC in Finland, is composed of teachers’ interviews and participant observations in the form of videos and field notes. The results illustrate infant–teacher lap interactions as constructed in the interplay among actors, context, and situation. This research advances an understanding of transitions as relational processes that develop through time and are constructed within a network of temporal, agentic, contextual, and situational aspects.

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