The research unit is involved in the following areas of research:

1.  

The “Discovery” of Youth’s Learning Potential Early in the Life Course
(funded by Jacobs Foundation)

The Impact of State Intervention on the Educational Integration of Immigrants: German 'Resettlers' and Non-German Immigrants Compared
(dissertation project, funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation)

OECD Cross-national Study of Transitions of Students with Disabilities beyond Secondary Education
(gefördert von der Organisation für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (OECD))

Special School-Leavers Transitioning from School to Work. Discursive and Biographical Constructions of Learning Disability
(dissertation project)

Social inequalities in the German Education System – What we know and what we want to know?
(funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation)
– finished – 

2.  

Shifting Tensions between Vocational and General Education: France and Germany Compared (VOCGENE)
(funded by European EqualSoc Network on Economic Change, Quality of Life & Social Cohesion)

Special Education and Disability Policy in Historical and Comparative Perspective
(funded by Stiftung Deutsch-Amerikanische Wissenschaftsbeziehungen (SDAW) im Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft)

3.  

Varieties of Life Course Patterns: The Role of Institutions in Shaping Labour Market Careers in Europe
(funded by European EqualSoc Network on Economic Change, Quality of Life & Social Cohesion)

Employment Opportunities of Less-educated Persons in Historical and Comparative Perspective 

Individuals’ Lives after Unemployment – A Comparative Study

Doing Gender in Science and Engineering

4.  

Weak Interest Groups and Company-level Industrial Relations: New Challenges and Operational Approaches for Company-level Employee Representatives
(dissertation project, funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation)

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(Coordinator of the Consortium: Prof. Hans-Peter Blossfeld, University of Bamberg)

Contact: Heike Solga, tel. +49 30 25491-171, e-mail: solga@wzb.eu

Further information

Researchers: Heike Solga, Wolfgang Ludwig-Mayerhofer (Universität Siegen), Kathrin Leuze
Staff: Rosine Dombrowski, Ralf Künster

Duration: 10/2008 – 12/2013

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“Underachievement” is a well-established educational research field. However, both longitudinal and interdisciplinary studies on the interplay between individuals’ learning potential and educational attainment are rare, as are analyses of life course consequences of underachievement. This psychological, sociological, and economic longitudinal study aims to contribute to our knowledge of social disparities in the processes of discovering youths’ learning potential—and its development—in families, schools, and vocational training markets. We are less interested in replicating well-researched variations in the achievement-ability-relationship between social classes. Instead, we focus on within-group differences, both during schooling (within social classes) and during transitions from school to vocational training and labor markets (within educational groups). Such intra-group differences would reveal whether underachievement of children from lower-class and higher-class families is generated by similar or different mechanisms, and whether the mechanisms common to all social classes differ in strength in generating underachievement. Our unique data collection would allow us to investigate intra-group variance, even the crucial relationships between achievement, ability, and personality. In addition, a novel decomposition of family background will be coupled with a multidimensional life course approach examining interaction between youth and their siblings, partners, and parents.

Further information

In cooperation with Prof. Dr. Gert Wagner and Prof. Dr. Jürgen Schupp (German Socio-Economic Panel Study/German Institute for Economic Research/DIW), Prof. Dr. Elsbeth Stern (ETH Zurich)

Contact: Heike Solga, tel. +49 30 25491-171, e-mail: solga@wzb.eu

Researchers: Heike Solga, Martina Dieckhoff
Staff: Johannes Uhlig, Paula Protsch

Duration: 7/2007 – 6/2011
Funded by the Jacobs Foundation

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Janina Söhn's doctoral thesis explores the role of immigration and integration policies for immigrant children's incorporation into their host country's school system. The empirical focus is on individuals who immigrated to Germany as minors since the end of the 1980s and began or continued their school career in German schools. These recent cohorts of young immigrants encompass a substantial number of persons whose educational attainment, however, has hardly been studied until now. Within this group of first generation immigrants, children of 'resettler families' (immigrants of German 'descent' from Eastern Europe) are compared with non-German immigrants. By comparing these particular groups, institutional determinants of educational opportunities can be analysed: In how far does it matter that the receiving state treats different immigrant groups with varying legal statuses differently, resettlers being an example of privileged immigration? A theoretical part will discuss ways in which immigration regulation, general and school-specific integration policies might impact immigrant groups’ educational achievements. This theoretical approach will be applied to the empirical case study: Do the actual institutional regulations in the case of resettlers and their comparison groups suggest that resettlers enjoy an educational head start? On the micro-level, three data sets (the Sample Census 2005, the third wave of the German Youth Survey and PISA-E 2003) will be analysed. We will test whether the resettler status with its implication of immigration and integration policies exerts direct or indirect influences (mitigated by individual or family-related factors) on educational attainment.

Dissertation project (funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation): Janina Söhn

Contact: Janina Söhn, tel. +49 30 25491-303, e-mail: soehn@wzb.eu

Publication:
SP I 2008-503 > PDF
Janina Söhn, Bildungschancen junger Aussiedler(innen) und anderer Migrant(inn)en der ersten Generation, 37 pp.

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This cross-nationally comparative project for the OECD examines the state of knowledge concerning transitions of youth and young adults with disabilities beyond secondary education in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland. Focusing first on access to vocational training, higher education, and employment, the study identifies the results of educational and social policies and local practices, asking how educational quality and equality can be strengthened for this disadvantaged group. Secondly, the project investigates transition patterns within tertiary education and on to employment in order to build a catalog of factors that facilitate or hinder successful transitions, which will be used to guide a larger cross-national longitudinal study.

Contact: Justin Powell, Tel. +49 30 25491-173, e-mail: powell@wzb.eu

Researchers: Justin Powell, Kai Felkendorff (Pädagogische Hochschule Zürich)

Duration: on-going
Funded by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

Publications:

• Powell, Justin J. W., and Kai Felkendorff (in press): Transitions of Youth and Young Adults with Disabilities to Postsecondary Education and Employment in the German-speaking Countries. Expert Report. Paris: OECD

• Powell, Justin J. W., Kai Felkendorff, and Judith Hollenweger (2008): Disability in the German, Swiss, and Austrian Higher Education Systems. In: Gabel, S. L., S. Danforth (Eds.), Disability and the Politics of Education. An International Reader. New York: Peter Lang, 517-540

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The working title of Lisa Pfahl's dissertation is „Special School-Leavers Transitioning from School to Work. Discursive and Biographical Constructions of Learning Disability”. This research project reconstructs how discursive knowledge of disability contributed to institutionalisation of educational inequality. Special schools also shape the interactive constitution of the self and biographical action. At the center of this inquiry is how — and if — individuals with less education achieve agency in the German educational system. The educational system is conceptualized as an instance of subjectivation, which I analyze in a twofold manner. Firstly, I recount the discourses of academic special education theorists and practitioners. This line of analysis reveals the strategic meanings of separation practices in the five-tiered German educational system. Secondly, I interpret hermeneutically the occupational biographies of special school leavers to understand their agency as well as their adaptation of special education discourses. Ultimately, the research concentrates the consequences of low education for young adults with so-called learning disability on their life courses, on their subjective experiences, and on their selves.

Dissertation project: Lisa Pfahl

Contact: Lisa Pfahl, tel. +49 30 25491-176, e-mail: pfahl@wzb.eu

Publication:
SP I 2008-504 > PDF
Lisa Pfahl, Die Legitimation der Sonderschule im Lernbehindertendiskurs in Deutschland im 20. Jahrhundert, 48 pp.

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Aim of the project was a state-of-the-art report on the mechanisms of educational inequalities in the German school system. The report gives an overview in what we know about educational inequalities in terms of social origin, migration background and gender and identifies areas of future research.

Contact: Heike Solga, Tel. +49 30 25491-171, e-mail: solga@wzb.eu

Duration: June – December 2008 (finished)
Funded by Hans-Böckler-Stiftung

Publication:
Solga, Heike; Rosine Dombrowski (2009): Soziale Ungleichheiten in schulischer und außerschulischer Bildung – Stand der Forschung und Forschungsbedarf. Arbeitspapier der Hans-Böckler-Stiftung Nr. 171. Düsseldorf
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This comparative project investigates internationalization and institutional changes at the nexus of advanced general education and specific vocational training in North America and Europe. It reports on contemporary developments in national postsecondary educational systems, examines institutional persistence and change as these systems react to international pressures, and analyzes the consequences of such developments for participation in education and employment as well as social mobility. The analysis goes beyond the cross-sectional, as we ask how national systems developed and why they change as they do. Our focus is on the evolution of these educational systems’ complementary models of preparing young adults for labor market participation and active citizenship. Further, the study emphasizes competition between the organizational fields involved in advanced skill formation: Vocational education and training in schools and firms, on the one hand, and tertiary education in academies, colleges, and universities, on the other. Building on detailed national portraits of structures and pathways, this project synthesizes two rarely combined literatures—on higher education institutions and on vocational education and training systems—to understand dynamics of change in postsecondary education.

Contact: Justin Powell, tel. +49 30 25491-173, e-mail: powell@wzb.eu

Staff: Nadine Bernhard, Lukas Graf

Researchers: Justin Powell, Heike Solga

Duration: till 12/2011
Funded by German Research Foundation (DFG)

Publications:

• Powell, Justin J.W., Laurence Coutrot, Lukas Graf, Nadine Bernhard, Annick Kieffer, Heike Solga, Comparing the Relationship between Vocational and Higher Education in Germany and France. WZB Discussion Paper SP I 2009-506, 57 p.

• Mayer, Karl Ulrich, Heike Solga (2008): Skill Formation: Interdisciplinary and Cross-National Perspectives. New York: Cambridge University Press

• Powell, Justin J. W.; Solga, Heike (2008): Internationalization of Vocational and Higher Education Systems - A Comparative-Instiutional Approach. WZB Discussion Paper SP I 2008-501, 42 p.

• Solga, Heike, Justin Powell (2006). Gebildet – Ungebildet. In: Lessenich, Stephan & Frank Nullmeier (Hg.): Deutschland – eine gespaltene Gesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, p. 175-190

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European declarations aim to establish an enhanced European skill formation area that will strengthen the EU’s global competitiveness. Yet the efforts of decisionmakers to achieve the diverse goals codified in the Bologna (higher education) and Copenhagen (vocational training) declarations imply the reform or even restructuring of national educational systems, which resist transformative change. Focusing on shifting tensions between general and vocational skill formation systems in France and Germany, this project charts changes in the competition between the differentially institutionalized organizational fields of general and vocational education.

Contact: Justin Powell, tel. +49 30 25491-173, e-mail: powell@wzb.eu

Staff: Justin Powell, Lukas Graf, Nadine Bernhard, Laurence Coutrot (Centre Maurice Halbwachs, CNRS, Paris), Heike Solga

Duration: on-going
Funded by European EqualSoc Network on Economic Change, Quality of Life & Social Cohesion

Publication:
SP I 2008-507 > PDF
Lukas Graf, Applying the Varieties of Capitalism Approach to Higher Education: A Case Study of the Internationalisation Strategies of German and British Universities, 65 S.

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How have nation-states, churches, and philanthropists historically responded to disability and deviance in Europe and North America? Age-old strategies of care, compensation, and rehabilitation will be contrasted with contemporary appeals to equal opportunities, rights, and participation (inclusion). Comparative studies of educational system development and disability policy reform show the extent to which these differing ideals have been reached in the Atlantic world since the mid-1800s. Special education offers a vital but neglected field to examine the trade-offs between principles of merit and equality and the resulting educational and social inequalities. Since few studies on special education have an extended historical reach or compare cross-nationally, this study will systematize the comparative dimensions of special education’s institutionalization. Funded by the Stiftung Deutsch-Amerikanische Wissenschaftsbeziehungen (SDAW) im Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft, this project will lead to a co-authored book.

Contact: Justin Powell, tel. +49 30 25491-173, e-mail: powell@wzb.eu

Staff: Justin Powell, John G. Richardson (Western Washington University)

Duration: on-going
Funded by Stiftung Deutsch-Amerikanische Wissenschaftsbeziehungen (SDAW) im Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft

Publications:

• Powell, Justin J.W. (2009): To Segregate or to Separate? The Institutionalization of Special Education in the United States and Germany. Comparative Education Review 53(2): 161-187
• Richardson, John G. (2006): Institutional Sequences, Pedagogical Reach, and Comparative Educational Systems. In: Baker, David P. & Alexander W. Wiseman (eds.), The Impact of Comparative Education Research on Institutional Theory. Amsterdam: Elsevier

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The rising participation rates of women in higher education has led to an increasing number of couples in which both partners hold an academic degree. In these couples, the entwining of dual professional careers – defined as the successful pursuit of a professional career by both partners – becomes ever more important. At the same time, it is an essential prerequisite for the realization of female professional careers. The pursuit of careers in science and private enterprises by both partners requires not only increased negotiation and coordination efforts within the couple but also suitable external conditions in labor markets. However, often couples’ efforts to achieve dual careers fail; most frequently because of restrictions on female professional careers.

This research project will therefore examine the external and within-couple conditions for female professional careers as a component of dual careers in academic couples. For this purpose, we will reconstruct the life course patterns of occupational and family biographies of both partners and thereby take into account important professional and familial decision-making situations as well as advantageous and constraining contextual factors.

Further information

Contact: Alessandra Rusconi, tel. +49 30 25491-174, e-mail: rusconi@wzb.eu

Duration: 11/2007 – 9/2010
Funded by German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and European Social Fund (ESF)

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The project focuses on the examination of life course patterns, in particular of labour market careers, through a demographic lens. We use a population-based approach to explore cross-national differences in the structure of ‘typical’ life course patterns. A comparative analysis of life course patterns in the EU-25 enables us to gain important insights as to how institutional contexts shape the life course. The research team includes people with different research interests in a project that takes a multi-dimensional life-course perspective. Knowledge on how life course patterns may vary across countries is very limited. This is because empirical evidence on national differences has largely been drawn from studies of small non-nationally representative samples of respondents. EqualSoc members connected to one of the partner institutes have access to the micro-data from the EU Labour Force Survey (1983-2005). Due to their unique sample size these data provide the ideal basis for a fine-grained investigation of people’s economic activity across the different stages of the life-course and family life-cycle. The data allow us to account for within-country variations in people’s work-life biographies that cannot be captured by smaller-scale comparative survey data. A multi-country study based on the EULFS also provides us with the opportunity to investigate the hitherto under-researched life course patterns in the post-socialist countries. Moreover, given that for many countries data is available for long periods of time, it allows for an in-depth analysis of temporal change in institutional contexts and the consequences of such changes on work/life biographies. The research will be based on a common methodology (multilevel models for a repeated cross-sectional research design).

Contact: Martina Dieckhoff, tel. +49 30 25491-150, e-mail: dieckhoff@wzb.eu

Researchers: Martina Dieckhoff und Nadia Steiber

Duration: till August 2010
Funded by European EqualSoc Network on Economic Change, Quality of Life & Social Cohesion

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Contact: Heike Solga, tel. +49 30 25491-171, e-mail: solga@wzb.eu

Duration: on-going

Publications:

• Solga, Heike (2009): Bildungsarmut und Ausbildungslosigkeit in der Bildungs- und Wissensgesellschaft. In: Rolf Becker (Hg.), Lehrbuch der Bildungssoziologie: Fragestellungen, Theorien und empirische Befunde. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften
• Solga, Heike (2008): Lack of Training – The Employment Opportunities of Low-Skilled Persons from a Sociological and Micro-economic Perspective. In: Karl Ulrich Mayer; Heike Solga (Eds.), Skill Formation – Interdisciplinary and Cross-National Perspectives. New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 173-204

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This project is undertaking a comparative study of the consequences past unemployment has on individuals’ lives even years after regaining employment. Central questions include:

• Why does unemployment have damaging effects on future careers? An empirical test of existing explanations.

• Which categories of the population are most affected and why?

• Which effect do changing policies have on post-unemployment employment trajectories in Europe?

Contact: Martina Dieckhoff, tel. +49 30 25491-150, e-mail: dieckhoff@wzb.eu

Researcher: Martina Dieckhoff

Duration: on-going

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Duration: since 2009

Contact:
Heike Solga, tel. +49 30 25491-171, e-mail: solga@wzb.eu
Lisa Pfahl, tel. +49 30 25491-176, e-mail: pfahl@wzb.eu

Publication:
Solga, Heike; Lisa Pfahl (2009): Doing Gender im technisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Bereich. In: Joachim Milberg (Hg.), Förderung des Nachwuchses in Technik und Naturwissenschaft. Berlin: Springer Verlag, S. 155-219.

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Previous research has repeatedly stressed the importance of extended vocational training in employees' labour market participation and employability. However, a large share of German companies do not provide training opportunities. Moreover, particular groups of employees, like female workers and low skilled workers, are clearly underrepresented in extended vocational training. Since these groups are already disadvantaged on the labour market, a lack of vocational training is likely to reduce their employability in the long run. As a consequence, risks of cumulating disadvantages arise. Current research has identified four main barriers, which restrict the distribution (among companies) and participation (of employees) in extended vocational training: (1) Short-term orientation in firms' HRM policies, (2) uncertainty of jobs and careers, (3) restrictions due to lack of time and financial resources, and (4) the persistence of early retirement policies. It is the main goal of our project to investigate how these barriers can be overcome. Therefore, we focus on innovative firm policies in the fields of extended vocational training and working hours. Particular attention is paid (a) to institutional arrangements that foster long-term oriented firm policies, (b) to working-time policies that are able to provide sufficient time for vocational training, and (c) to firm policies addressing particular groups of employees (like female workers or low skilled workers). The project will address the following three research questions: 1. Which new firm policies in the fields of vocational training and working hours with an explicit focus on demographic or life-course issues do we find? 2. What are the effects of these policies on the participation of different groups of employees (with regard to gender, skills, household context and life stage)? 3. What are the institutional preconditions of these policies at the firm, sector and state level? Theoretically, the project derives from transaction cost theory on the one hand and theories on social inequality on the other. The research design contains four elements: (1) Firm-level case studies, (2) employee surveys and qualitative interviews (3) analyses of representative firm data, and (4) workshops with experts in other European countries.

Researcher: Heike Solga
Staff: Philip Wotschack

Contact: Philip Wotschack, tel. +49 30 25491-280, e-mail: wotschack@wzb.eu

Duration: 9/2009 – 8/2012 
Funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation

Publications:

• Wotschack, Philip; Franziska Scheier; Eckart Hildebrandt (2009): Keine Zeit für die Auszeit. Langzeitkonten schaffen im Erwerbsverlauf bisher kaum Entlastungen. In: WZB-Mitteilungen, No. 123, March, p. 12-15

• Wotschack, Philip; Eckart Hildebrandt; Franziska Scheier (2008): Langzeitkonten – Neue Chancen für die Gestaltung von Arbeitszeiten und Lebensläufen? In: WSI-Mitteilungen, Vol. 61, No. 11+12, p. 619-626

• Wotschack, Philip; Eckart Hildebrandt (2008): Working-Life Time Accounts in German Companies: New Opportunities for Structuring Working Hours and Careers? In: Peter Ester, Ruud Muffels, Joop Schippers and Ton Wilthagen (Eds.), Innovating European Labour Markets: Dynamics and Perspectives. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, p. 215-241

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The theoretical framework for explaining interest groups’ operational approaches and the consideration of special interests is provided by micropolitical approaches in combination with resource analysis. Company-level case studies will be conducted for the empirical part of the analysis.

Dissertation project (funded by Hans Böckler Foundation):  Franziska Scheier

Contact: Franziska Scheier, tel. +49 (0)30 25491-155, e-mail: scheier@wzb.eu