Education, Competence Development and Career Trajectories Analysing Data of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS)

This Open Access book presents the results of an interdisciplinary research program to utilize data from the multicohort German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), which included over 100.000 participants in six nationally representative panel studies. Renowned researchers from the fields of sociology, psychology, educational science, economics, and survey methodology have used the (longitudinal) data for their substantive and/or methodological questions and present important results of their research projects. This edited volume contains contributions from the following four topics: (1) Competence Development: Individual Characteristics, Learning Environments, and other Contextual Factors, (2) Educational Transitions and Pathways: Influencing Factors and Outcomes, (3) Vocational Training and Labour Market, and (4) Individuals with Migration Background. It provides essential insights for researchers, postdocs, PhD students, and university students of different scientific disciplines interested in educational sciences as well as for policy makers who have to deal with educational problems in modern societies.

1. Introduction -- Education, Competence Development and Career Trajectories (Hans-Peter Blossfeld, Gwendolin J. Blossfeld and Sabine Weinert).- Part I. Competence and Skill Development: Individual Characteristics, Learning Environments, and Contextual Factors. 2. Quality of Early Learning Environments: Measures, Validation, and Effects on Child Development (Sabine Weinert, Manja Attig, Anja Linberg, Franziska Vogel and Hans-Günther Rossbach).- 3. The Emergence of Gender-Specific Competence Patterns and Decision Making During the Course of Educational and Job Careers in Germany (Loreen Beier, Alessandra Minello, Wilfred Uunk, Magdalena Pratter, Gordey Yastrebov and Hans-Peter Blossfeld).- 4. Patterns and Predictors of Literacy and Numeracy Development During Adulthood: Insights From Two Longitudinal Assessment Surveys (Clemens M. Lechner).- 5. The Interplay Between Instructional Pace, Skill Externalities, and Student Achievement: An Empirical Assessment (David Kiss).- 6. Addressing Environmental and Individual Factors in Early Secondary School: The Roles of Instruction Techniques and Self-Perception (Jeffrey M. DeVries, Carsten Szardenings, Philipp Doebler and Markus Gebhardt).- 7. An Illustration of Local Structural Equation Modeling for Longitudinal Data: Examining Differences in Competence Development in Secondary Schools (Gabriel Olaru, Alexander Robitzsch, Andrea Hildebrandt and Ulrich Schroeders).- Part II. Educational Transitions and Pathways: Influencing Factors and Outcomes. 8. Inequality in Educational Transitions During Secondary School: Results From the German National Educational Panel Study (Florian Wohlkinger and Hartmut Ditton).- 9. lternative Routes to Higher Education Eligibility: Inclusion, Diversion, and Social Inequality on the Way to Higher Education (Steffen Schindler and Felix Bittmann).- 10. Dropping Out of Higher Education in Germany: Using Retrospective Life Course Data to DetermineDropout Rates and Destinations of Non-Completers (Nicole Tieben).- 11. Studying Influences of Socio-Economic Contexts and Spatial Effects on Educational Careers (Steffen Hillmert, Andreas Hartung and Katarina Weßling).- Part III. Vocational Training and Labour Market. 12. Low-Achieving School Leavers in Germany - Who Are They and Where Do They Go? (Anne Christine Holtmann, Laura Menze and Heike Solga).- 13. Occupational Sex Segregation and its Consequences for the (Re-)Production of Gender Inequalities in the German Labour Market (Corinna Kleinert, Kathrin Leuze, Ann-Christin Bächmann, Dörthe Gatermann, Anna Erika Hägglund and Kai Rompczyk).- 14. Employment-Related Further Training in a Dynamic Labour Market (Silke Anger, Pascal Heß, Simon Janssen and Ute Leber).- 15. Regional Factors as Determinants of Employees’ Training Participation (Katja Görlitz, Sylvi Rzepka and Marcus Tamm).- Part IV. Individuals With Migration Background. 16. Is the First Language a Resource, an Obstacle or Irrelevant for Language Minority Students’ Education? (Aileen Edele, Julian Seuring, Kristin Schotte, Cornelia Kristen and Petra Stanat).- 17. Ethnic differences in social capital mobilization at the transition to vocational training in Germany (Tobias Roth and Markus Weißmann).- 18. Gendered occupational aspirations: A comparison of young native-born and Turkish minority women (Manuel Siegert, Tobias Roth and Irena Kogan).

Sabine Weinert is head of the Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Bamberg. Her research focuses on the development of competencies, their impact and influencing factors. She acted as scientific head of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS; a large-scale multicohort study) and coordinates the interdisciplinary DFG Priority Programme ‘Education as a Lifelong Process‘.

Gwendolin J. Blossfeld is a coordinator of the DFG Priority Programme 1646 ‘Education as a Lifelong Process’ and a postdoctoral fellow of the Twinning Project ‘YouthLife’ which are both located at the University of Bamberg. She has organized substantive and methodological workshops for the DFG Priority Programme 1646. Her substantive research interests are in the fields of educational sociology, methods of longitudinal data analysis, social inequality, and demography.

Hans-Peter Blossfeld is Emeritus of Excellence at the University of Bamberg and coordinates (together with S. Weinert) the interdisciplinary DFG Priority Programme ‘Education as a Lifelong Process.‘ He is the founder of the NEPS and held a Chair of Sociology at the University of Bamberg. He is an internationally renowned expert on life-course research, statistical methods for longitudinal data analysis, modern methods of quantitative social research, cross-national research, social inequality, youth, family, educational sociology, labor market research, demography, and social stratification and mobility.