The research group on ‘Individual Developmental Trajectories and Institutional Contexts Across the Lifespan’ is a collaborative project designed to run six years, established by DIPF and IPN. The team of researchers will primarily be focusing on the analyses of existing datasets from empirical educational research, striving for a comprehensive and overarching perspective on findings and integrating them.

Thematically, the research group focuses on the longitudinal perspective of educational processes and educational trajectories from adolescence to adulthood. On the one hand, this comprehends a descriptive perspective: How do individuals change and how are developmental processes represented in different life spheres from adolescence to adulthood? How can this be described for different groups of people? For instance, in how far are developments similar across different learning contexts and school types, and how do they differ? On the other hand, an explanatory perspective is taken to research the roles of individual variables as well as institutional contexts. Taking the example of gender differences: are differences between boys and girls reinforced during secondary education, and if divergent developments can be described, are these ‘general patterns’ or does tracking in the German secondary school system come into effect?