Drawing on findings from a large EU-funded research project that took place over three years, this book analyses educational trajectories of young people in eight European countries: Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia and the United Kingdom.

Contributors explore interactions between structural and institutional contexts of educational trajectories, the individual meaning attached to education and the strategies adopted by young people to cope with its demands. The book also analyses the decision-making processes of individual students, placing them firmly within the social contexts of their families, local schools, national education systems and welfare states, as well as transnational policy contexts.

In considering educational disadvantage, the book is based on primary, cross-national research with systematic analysis of the different themes addressed. As every chaptersis co-authored by two or three researchers, each based in a different country, the book goes beyond the usual country-based chapter design to provide an enriched insight into both comparative theory and research methods.

Andreas Walther is Professor of Social Pedagogy and Youth Welfare and Director of Education and Coping in the Life Course Research Centre at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Marcelo Parreira do Amaral is Professor of International and Comparative Education at the University of Munster, Germany.
Morena Cuconato is Associate Professor for Social Pedagogy at the Department of Educational Studies at the University of Bologna, Italy.
Roger Dale is Professor of Education at the University of Bristol, UK, and at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.