Co-investigators: Professors Jutta Heckhausen and Olaf Köller (Director at the Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education and Professor at the University of Kiel, Germany)

This project addresses the transition from school to work in German middle-tier high-school (i.e., Realschule) seniors in a large metropolitan area of Germany, Berlin. The school-to-work transition in Germany is facilitated by the apprenticeship and dual-education (vocational school plus training in a company) system. We have been tracking 768 high-school seniors from two lower and two middle-class areas in East and West Berlin throughout 9th and 10th grade and for two years after middle-tier high-school graduation (end of 10th grade). Which psychological (motivation, control striving), social support (friends, family), and sociostructural (parents’ education) factors determine whether adolescents attain a suitable apprenticeship and/or transition into higher education in a higher-tier school? Findings so far reveal the impressive ability of adolescents to adjust their goals and control strategies to the challenges and experiences during the transition into vocational training.Current and former graduate students involved in this project: Susan Farruggia, Ph.D. (now Associate Professor at the University of Auckland, New Zealand); Claudia Haase, Ph.D. (now Assistant Professor at Northwestern University); Gabriel Nagy, Ph.D. (now Professor at the Leibniz-Institute for Science and Mathematics Education at the University Kiel); Michael Poulin, Ph.D. (now Associate Professor at State University of New York, Buffalo); Martin Tomasik, Ph.D. (now postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zurich, Switzerland; Sam Hardy, Ph.D. (now Associate Professor at Brigham Young University, Salt-Lake City)