YEAR 2020

The 5th International NEPS Conference of the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) took place on December 7 and 8, 2020. Around 300 participants from 11 different countries met – for the first time in a purely online event format. In her keynote speech, Director of LIfBi and Project Leader of NEPS, Prof. Dr. Cordula Artelt, looked back on the first 10 years of the education panel. Guest speaker was Prof. DPhil Michelle Jackson from Stanford University on the topic "Is Socioeconomic Inequality Fundamental?". In addition, the "NEPS Publication Award" was presented for outstanding papers based on NEPS data.

At the third and so far largest conference of the network on refugee research on the topic of "Contexts of refuge, protection and everyday life of refugees", LIfBi staff members participated with results from the refugee study ReGES. Together with Dr. Tamara Ehmann from the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Dr. Gisela Will and Dr. Christoph Homuth organised a panel titled "Lifeworlds of children and adolescents with refugee experience – methodological challenges and initial results". In this panel, LIfBi presented joint research with Dr. Elisabeth Liebau (DIW): Using data from the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Refugee Survey and data from the ReGES study, the participation of refugee children in daycare centres was examined.

This year's “Bettina Paetzold Prize” for outstanding teaching at the Otto Friedrich University of Bamberg closely related to gender inequalities was awarded to Dr. Gundula Zoch from the Leibniz Institute for Educational Pathways (LIfBi). And LIfBi staff members Dr. Tanja Kutscher and Dr. Marie-Ann Sengewald share this year's Marie Schlei Doctoral Award, which is offered by the Freie Universität Berlin (FU Berlin).

With the newly founded Competence Centre for Procurement (LKCB), the Leibniz Association has recently bundled the competences of its 96 member institutions in the area of administration. The Bamberg Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) was significantly involved in the development and founding of the Competence Centre. With Thomas Saueracker, the acting head of LIfBi administration, it also provides the deputy chair of the advisory board.

Rating scales have a long tradition in questionnaire construction - but they also have weaknesses, especially when it comes to falsification and extreme response styles. With her LIfBi Lecture at the end of November Prof. Dr. Eunike Wetzel from the University of Koblenz-Landau explained to what extent the "Multidimensional Forced Choice Approach" represents a helpful alternative.

On November 12^th and 13^th, 2020, the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) hosted the joint conference of the sections "Social Inequality and Social Structure Analysis" and "Education and Upbringing" of the German Sociological Association (DGS). About 80 scholars participated in the virtual conference under the title "Education and Social Inequality" and exchanged views on the emergence, reproduction mechanisms and consequences, but also legitimation forms of social inequality in and through education.

At the joint of the sections "Social Inequality and Social Structure Analysis" and "Education and Upbringing" of the German Sociological Association (DGS) under the title "Education and Social Inequality" in November 2020 at LIfBi, current work based on data from the BMBF-funded refugee study ReGES (Refugees in the German Educational System) was also presented.

Due to the lockdown at the beginning of this year caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) had to interrupt the seventh survey wave of the BMBF-funded refugee study ReGES during the field phase and change the survey mode. However, with telephone interviews and additional questions on the Covid-19 pandemic, the surveys of children and adolescents with a refugee background could be continued and successfully completed in early September. The interviews with institutional context persons will be completed in November.

The temporary closures of schools in this year’s spring resulted in parents across Germany having to supervise the homeschooling of their children. The fourth evaluation of the Corona supplementary survey as part of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), the largest long-term education study in Germany, now examines how satisfied parents were with the school's support during that time and how they assessed their children's learning success. Data from surveys of 1,452 parents of 8th grade students show that parents' general satisfaction with school support and their children's perceived learning success are closely related. In contrast, parents' educational background and satisfaction with learning materials as well as the type of school their children attend play a minor role.

On May 20 and 21, 2021, the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories will host the conference "Arrived? On the Situation of Refugee Children and Adolescents in the German Education System". The conference will take place in a virtual format and will offer the opportunity for interdisciplinary exchange between science, politics and practice.

In times of travel restrictions, the Research Data Center (RDC) of the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) now offers educational researchers an extended online service: Registration for the use of RemoteNEPS, a remote data processing service for the survey and test data of the National Education Panel (NEPS), is now possible completely online. Prerequisite for the use of RemoteNEPS is the authentication by entering a predefined text line. This typed biometric profile can now be entered via a corresponding website. The previously obligatory training event in Bamberg has been replaced by an online training presentation that can be completed at any time and any place.

The ongoing digitization of society and the resulting challenges and opportunities for teaching and learning processes will play a significant role in the surveys of the National Educational Panel (NEPS) in the future. Therefore, a workshop on "Digital Competencies" took place at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi). In this workshop, an initial concept for the measurement of digital competencies was presented for discussion, which are to be recorded for the first time in the new starting cohort 8 (students in secondary school) from 2022.

Due to the school closures caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus at the beginning of the year, the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) had to postpone some of the second surveys for the INSIDE inclusion study. Instead of early summer, students and parents will now be surveyed during fall and winter term 2020. An additional topic is how to deal with the Corona-related school closures and the changes in teaching and learning situations.

Once again this year, the Leibniz Association's Education Research Network invites to the Annual Fora on Educational Policy. It will take place on October 29, 2020 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., for the first time in the form of a virtual online event. The framework topic is "Good linguistic education", on which Prof. Dr. Cordula Artelt, Director of the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi), will also give a presentation.

In July 2020, the National Educational Panel (NEPS) called on interested researchers to submit their proposals for new survey modules in all NEPS start cohorts. This is the first time the survey program has opened up to external content. There was a great response to this "Call for Modules," which closed on September 30, 2020.

With its internal research funding, the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) supports its staff in implementing their own research projects. This year, new projects from the research data center and migration work areas were approved.

On October 1, 2020, Dr. Daniel Fuß, Head of the Research Data Center (RDC) of the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi), was elected Chair of the Standing Committee Research Data Infrastructure (FDI Committee) of the Council for Social and Economic Data (RatSWD). Together with Tatjana Mika (Research Data Center German Pension Insurance), he will assume the position for the next three years.

Due to the temporary closures of schools and daycare centers in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic this spring, many working parents were suddenly faced with the challenge of caring for their children and pursuing their gainful employment at the same time. The third analysis of the Corona supplementary survey as part of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), the largest long-term education study in Germany, now shows how working parents organized the care of their school and daycare children in the first months of the pandemic. The data point to a central role for mothers, but also show that one-third of older school children were without supervision during this period.

The research project "BildungsLandschaft Oberfranken (BiLO)" was completed by the end of September. For more than five years, researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) investigated the connection between regional educational opportunities and individual educational decisions and surveyed about 8,000 people and 1,500 educational providers in Upper Franconia for this purpose. Their conclusion: With innovative methods and approaches, BiLO addressed a research gap on the one hand, and on the other, the project was able to build a bridge between science and practice by providing important information and tools for municipal education monitoring. BiLO was funded by the Upper Franconia Foundation until March 2020, and LIfBi has extended the project funding until September 2020.

Two renowned journals, "Soziale Welt" and "Frontiers in Psychology", have announced special issues on the Covid-19 pandemic. In both cases, researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) are involved as editors. Abstacts can be submitted for both journals as of now.