Risky Voyages: navigating changes in the organisation of work and education in Eastern Germany

The contrasts between the regulated German and unregulated British approach es to young adult transitions have been the subject of the authors' previou s Anglo-German Foundation studies, published as Youth and Work: transitions to employment (1991) and Becoming Adults in England and Germany (1994). Th e 'reunification' of Germany from 1990 has involved economic and political transformations whose effects will shape the future development of Germany and its place in the Union far years to come. This new study focuses on dir ections young people in the new Lander have taken in order to navigate thro ugh new education, training and employment structures and on new transition behaviours into and out of employment with regard to career outcomes. Far from 'catching up' with the rest of Germany, the erosion of the Dual System in the East may portend the future for the Lander of Western Germany. The issues raised have considerable resonances with the problems and contradict ions which have beset British education and training policy in the 1980s an d 1990s.