Education as a Lifelong Process

Abstract

In modern societies, education has become a lifelong process. This has made the principles of life-course research of utmost significance in empirical education research. As stated by Glen H. Elder, these can be described as: (1) focusing on long-term educational processes over the individual lifespan; (2) considering individual educational pathways within their institutional and social embeddedness (e.g., within not only formal educational institutions but also nonformal/informal contexts such as the family, peer groups, and other social networks); (3) analyzing decision-making processes in education linked to the idea of agency and the idea of plan-making, creative, and self-determining actors; (4) investigating the time structure and timing of educational events and transitions and the consequences they have for the subsequent educational pathways and educational chances; and (5) conceptually differentiating age, cohort, and period effects. This chapter discusses the importance of these five principles for the conception, design, and possibilities for analysis of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). In the context of these principles, we formulate methodological advantages of longitudinal data on educational processes that can be attained within the idea of NEPS. In particular, panel data improve the opportunities to describe trajectories of growth and development over the life course and to study the patterns of causal relationships over longer time spans.