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ABSTRACT
In the 1980s and 1990s the study of education-work transitions took a comparative turn. Researchers sought to identify national differences in transition processes and outcomes and explain them in terms of institutional characteristics of national ‘transition systems’. This was an ambitious aim because it required the study of transitions to develop as a field of ‘macro’ social-science research, while continuing also to use theories, techniques of analysis and data associated with ‘micro’ research. This paper reviews the progress of transition-system research over the past 20 years. It describes the development of the research field and how it has been shaped by its theoretical origins, the political context, the availability of data and the organisation of research. The research has made significant if uneven progress towards explaining national differences in transitions; its achievements appear more significant when viewed from a perspective which emphasises the case-oriented rather than variables-oriented aims of comparative research.
Notes
1 The term ‘transition system’ is sometimes used more narrowly, to describe the support arrangements for young people making the transition or (in Germany) the alternative provision for young people who cannot find apprenticeships.
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Notes on contributors
David Raffe
David Raffe is Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Edinburgh and a former director of its Centre for Educational Sociology. His research covers all stages of education and training from secondary onwards, with particular interests in pathways and transitions beyond compulsory education, educational inequalities and education and training policy. He chaired the European Research Network on Transitions in Youth for its first years following its creation in 1992.