Preface

Transitions are woven into the fabric of students’ school experiences. They can range from changing classes during the day to changing grades or moving from one country to another during high school and beyond. All transitions can create challenges due to a combination of developmental, social, and curricular changes that occur when students shift from one education context to another. Most attention to date has focused on normative transitions: those from pre-kindergarten to elementary, middle, and high school, which may be followed by additional schooling or work. Early research, beginning with Simmons, Eccles, Midgley, and their colleagues, among others, focused on the transition from elementary to middle or junior high school, and included attempts to account for the decline in adaptive motivation that occurred with the transition. Among the explanations for the decline are that middle schools no longer “fit” students’ developmental stage and increased concerns about failure, interpersonal comparisons, and emphasis on evaluation.