Even though Europe is home to some of the most highly educated societies in the world, deep inequalities in education remain both within and between countries in Europe. LEARN will expand our understanding of these issues by collating existing evidence and generating new knowledge on educational inequalities, based on high-quality longitudinal data, and formulate practical evidence-based guidance to allow policy makers across Europe to address them. To this end, LEARN will use an educational transition perspective, which can be applied comparatively to different national education systems and is sensitive to the main arenas of inequality production in these systems. LEARN examines the emergence and development of inequalities over the course of educational careers in nine carefully selected case study countries, which reflect the variety of welfare regimes and education systems apparent in Europe: Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Romania, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

LEARN has three overarching objectives:

• First, it intends to map and collect existing data, providing original analysis of a range of high-quality education-focused longitudinal educational data sets across Europe.
• Second, it aims at developing tools for policymakers related to the findings of longitudinal analysis which support them in the policy making process.
• Its third aim is to identify interventions that compensate educational inequalities by providing a synthesis of existing work across Europe examining specific trends in educational inequalities and interventions intended to reduce them.

Obtaining a deeper understanding of educational inequality requires an inter- and multi-disciplinary approach, as the drivers of these inequalities operate at different levels, through interlinked economic mechanisms, societal norms, and political processes. One key feature of LEARN is the complementary nature of the research team, with a background in education studies, longitudinal survey methodology, psychology, social policy, economics and sociology.

Besides LIfBi, Universities of Lausanne and Zurich (Switzerland), Manchester Metropolitan University and University College London, University of Maastricht (Netherlands), Universities of Helsinki and Turku (Finland), University of Tallinn (Estonia), University of Trento and European University Institute - EUI (Italy), as well as Babeș-Bolyai University (Romania) are participating in LEARN. The project is coordinated at University of Helsinki, Finland.

To attain a more nuanced understanding of how educational inequalities develop over educational careers and persist in later life, LEARN uses high-quality longitudinal micro data available in these countries (surveys and registry-based data), it creates quasi-longitudinal data from cross-sectional comparative studies such as PISA and PIRLS, and it uses data obtained from experimental interventions. LEARN collates and synthesises disparate data sources and previous findings to create a more detailed understanding of the development of and effects of policy changes on educational inequalities, both within country contexts and comparatively. By adopting such approaches, LEARN constructs a more complete picture of educational disadvantages in pre-school, primary, secondary, and tertiary education, based on the integrated analysis of existing longitudinal datasets and review of previous studies across Europe and within the LEARN case study countries. LEARN relies on a variety of different methods to reach its aims: systematic reviews, country case studies, harmonized single-country as well as comparative empirical analyses, and evaluating causal effects of policy changes and interventions.

• Principal investigator: Prof. Gary Pollock, University of Helsinki and Manchester Metropolitan University
• Project management at LIfBi: Prof. Dr. Corinna Kleinert
• Application:
  • Prof. Gary Pollock, University of Helsinki and Manchester Metropolitan University 
  • Prof. Dr. Corinna Kleinert, Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi)
  • Prof. Jani Erola, University of Turku (UTU)
  • Prof. Moris Triventi, Università degli Studi di Milano (UniMi)
  • Prof. Herman Van de Werfhorst, European University Institute (EUI)
  • Prof. Oana Negru-Subtirica, Babeș-Bolyai University (UBB)
  • Prof. Marge Unt, Tallinn University (TLU)
  • Prof. Carla Haelermans, Maastricht University (UM)
  • Prof. Katariina Salmela-Aro, University of Helsinki (UH)
  • Prof. Stephen Morris, Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU)
    
  • Prof. Jake Anders, Prof. Jennifer Symonds and Prof. Lindsey Macmillan, University College London (UCL)
    
  • Prof. Laura Bernardi, University of Lausanne (UNIL)
  • Prof. Moritz Daum and Prof. Dr. Marlis Buchmann, University of Zurich (UZH)
• Project duration: 04/2024 – 03/2027
• Funding: Horizon Europe – EU-funding programme for research and innovation
• Link to this page: www.lifbi.de/LEARN