Dr. Jan Skopek

This project combines traditional retrospective models with more recent prospective models into an integrative model of educational reproduction. Our model considers the social reproduction of education as a social attribute and the demographic reproduction of populations carrying this attribute. We examine the role of various demographic pathways: union formation and homogamy, union (in)stability and repartering, fertility timing and quantum. To combine retrospective and prospective approaches, we introduce a method that substantially reduces the data requirements of prospective models. The method allows estimating prospective models based on retrospective data commonly available in surveys. It addresses two key issues - retrospective sampling bias and the problem of identifying representative cohorts. The method also allows disentangling social and demographic pathways of reproduction. The proposed research will leverage this method to examine educational reproduction prospectively using national and cross-nationally comparative data (GGS, SHARE, ISSP, ESS, SOEP, FFS). Our research - organized in two work packages - will enrich theoretical, methodological and empirical knowledge of educational reproduction and provide novel insight into the renewal of populations and their inequality structures. In doing so, the project will advance our understanding of social inequality and its reproduction in families. Moreover, the method that we introduce and further develop in this project will facilitate future prospective research on social stratification. The project is funded by the German Research Foundation and is collaboratively lead by Thomas Leopold, Gordey Yastrebov (both University of Cologne, Germany) and Jan Skopek (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland).

The project ISOTIS - Inclusive Education and Social Support to Tackle Inequalities in Society - funded by the European Commission (H2020) is a research consortium of 17 partner institutions across Europe collaboratively studying educational inequality between social and ethnic groups within European countries. ISOTIS will inform best practice in strategies for inclusive education. Jan Skopek is leading Working Package 1 "Inequality in various stages of the educational career: patterns and mechanisms". Major research activities involve (1) a comparative assessment of social and ethnic inequality in educational opportunity across European countries, (2) a longitudinal assessment of the roots and development of skill gaps among children in selected European countries, and (3) the effectiveness of institutional reforms aiming to reduce achievement gaps among children.

In today's increasingly diverse societies one of the key questions is how to foster the structural integration of immigrants. Education is one of the main prerequisites for social and economic integration. It is a critical resource for economic and societal progress and a crucial factor structuring socio-economic outcomes and life chances of individuals. Thus, endowing children with a migration background with equal chances to succeed in school will facilitate their integration into broader society. Research shows that migrant educational underachievement is a serious issue. Yet, relatively little is known about when, how and why migrant gaps develop in children's educational careers. Studies that investigate these questions using longitudinal data are scarce, particularly in the European context. Moreover, while some studies have tentatively suggested that early inclusion in the educational system might be beneficial for children with a migrant background, there are no studies systematically examining the effects of preschool attendance on the performance of immigrant children over time. The current research sets out to answer these questions. More specifically, the central goal of the project is to better understand, from a longitudinal perspective, when and how migrant gaps in educational outcomes arise during the early life course and what role preschool education plays in this. In particular, the projects sets out to establish whether preschool attendance can work as an equalizer for children with a migration background. To this end, longitudinal data on child development from the Republic of Ireland will be exploited. PhD: Stefanie Sprong.

This project proposes a comprehensive longitudinal investigation of the division of labor in older couples. It addresses a major gap of knowledge, as previous research has focused almost exclusively on how younger couples negotiate their division of market and domestic work throughout earlier periods of married life. Extending the analytical scope to older couples is particularly worthwhile, as both theory and empirical evidence suggest that the division of labor - and the associated gender inequalities - might shift substantially in later life. Most importantly, two critical life transitions of this period - grandparenthood and retirement - represent turning points that may instigate processes of adaptation and renegotiation of the previous division of labor in older couples. Consequently, the proposed research will trace older couples over extended periods of time to explore how, why, and under which conditions grandparenthood and retirement affect their arrangements of market and domestic work. The analyses will draw on comprehensive longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), the German Aging Survey (DEAS), the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), and the Panel Analysis of Intimate Relationships and Family Dynamics (pairfam). The investigation will be informed by life course, solidarity, and social network perspectives as well as established theories of the division of labor. In tying these frameworks together and extending them to the study of later life and older couples, the project will yield important contributions both at the theoretical and at the empirical level. The project is hosted at the Institute of Family Research at the University of Bamberg (Germany). Funding generously granted by the German Research Foundation amounts to 178,300 Euro.

Studying inequality in educational opportunities has a long tradition in sociology, and many social researchers have argued that education has become the key variable in social stratification. Over the last decades, modern societies have become characterized as knowledge-based economies in which the role of education and its organization in institutions have important consequences for educational participation in all phases of the life course. Nowadays, education may be seen as a lifelong process in which individuals acquire skills and competencies in formal and non-formal learning settings not only in school but also before school and afterwards throughout the entire life-span. The objective of the eduLIFE project was to study how the educational careers of individuals unfold over the entire life course in different societies and to relate this to family background, educational institutions, job careers, workplaces, and private life events. The project adopted an explicit life-course perspective, utilized comparative research designs, and exploited most suitable cross-sectional and longitudinal datasets for studying educational processes in modern societies. To analyse education as a lifelong process, the project was structured into four phases, each focusing on a specific, very sensitive stage of the educational career: (1) Childcare, Early Education and Social Inequality, (2) Models of Secondary Education and Social Inequality, (3) Gender, Education and the School-to-work Transition, (4) Adult Learning. Reputed scholars from a large cross-national network have contributed comparable country-specific analyses to the eduLIFE project. Findings of the project are published in four volumes. The project (P.I. Hans-Peter Blossfeld) was hosted at the University of Bamberg (Germany) and the European University Institute (Florence, Italy). Funding was generously granted by the ERC.