Young People’s Educational Careers in England and Germany

By: Judith Glaesser

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Synopsis: Through a comparative study of young people's educational careers in England and Germany, this book explores the range of influences which shape educational careers such as the individual talents and interests of young people, their social class and background, as well as school and country characteristics. Methodologically, the book develops a mixed methods approach that utilises Charles Ragin's increasingly popular Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to examine cross-case analyses of secondary survey data alongside within-case process-tracing analyses of interview data to establish causal understanding of educational careers. International comparison adds another dimension, exploiting the significant differences between the two countries' school and university systems. The book therefore offers both a contemporary account of young people's educational careers and decision-making as well as a practical contribution to ongoing debates concerning the establishment of causal andexplanatory knowledge in the non-experimental social sciences.