Transitions from School to Work

Ingrid Schoon is Professor of Human Development and Social Policy at the Institute of Education, University of London. Her research interests focus on issues of human development across the life-span - in particular, the transition from dependent childhood to productive adulthood; the study of risk and resilience; the realization of individual potential in a changing socio-historical context; social equalities in attainment, health, and well-being; and the intergenerational transmission of (dis)advantage. Schoon is currently involved in two major UK interdisciplinary research networks funded by the Economic and Research Council: the Priority Network on Gender Inequality and Production (GeNet) and the Centre for the Study of Learning and Life Chances in the Knowledge Economies (Llakes). She is also Director of PATHWAYS: an International Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme for the Comparative Study of Productive Youth Development, funded by the Jacobs Foundation, in collaboration with colleagues from the Universities of Michigan, Stockholm, Helsinki, Jena, and the Max Planck Institute in Berlin. She has published widely, including her recent publication with Cambridge University Press, Risk and Resilience: Adaptations in Changing Times. Rainer K. Silbereisen is Professor and Head of the Department of Developmental Psychology at the University of Jena, Adjunct Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at The Pennsylvania State University, and Director of the Center for Applied Developmental Science, Jena. He is currently the President of the International Union of Psychological Science. His main research interests focus on human development across the life-span - particularly concerning adolescence and early adulthood - the theoretical framework of which focuses on dynamic interactionism, stressing the combined role of biological, psychological, and socio-cultural determinants of human development. Trained as a psychologist, he has been involved in interdisciplinary, large-scale research on the role of social change in positive and maladaptive human development, such as the German Collaborative Research Center on Social Development in Post-Socialist Societies (SFB 580) and the German-Israeli Research Consortium on Migration and Societal Integration. He has published widely, such as the recently edited book (with Richard Lerner) Approaches to Positive Youth Development.