Challenging outdated structures and supporting innovative ideas is important for educational research. At the backdrop of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD 2006), a current issue is to ensure an inclusive education system on all levels which concerns especially students at risk. Within the German context this issue is still a challenging one. Students from low socioeconomic or immigrant backgrounds are more likely to be hit by selective mechanisms (Werning/ Löser/ Urban 2008).

Furthermore these students are affected by such mechanisms early in their school life. This is especially noteworthy considering that a successful school start is closely linked to school success later on (Alexander/ Entwisle 1998). In school year 2010/11, 2.3 percent of students started school at a special school and 5.5 percent of school entries in Germany still were delayed (Statistisches Bundesamt 2011).

This situation has to be emphasised because new procedures have been implemented to replace selective mechanisms in the transition from preschool to school. These inconsistent procedures reveal conflicting ideas related to the child’s transition from preschool to school. That means in practice the responsibility remains with the participants involved (Arndt/ Rothe/ Urban/ Werning 2013; Berthold 2011).

Referring to recent efforts to integrate parents, professionals and children’s perspectives in discourse on early childhood education (Dunlop/Fabian 2007), the project contributes to an understanding of the transition period from the participants’ perspectives. The study refers to enhancing a successful transition by analyzing processes of negotiation between the different microsystems and identifying relevant conditions in a next step.

The paper presents results of the research project “Learning experiences during the transition from early education to school” (2008-2013). The study is funded by the Federal State Department for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony, Germany.

Following an ecosystemic view and drawing on the “ecological and dynamic model of transition” (Bronfenbrenner/ Morris 1998; Rimm-Kaufman/ Pianta 2000) the research project emphasises the importance of the different microsystemic contexts and their dynamic interrelatedness. Against the backdrop of a socio-constructivist conceptualisation of learning (Lave/ Wenger 2007, Werning 2010) the study explores parents, educators and teachers’ constructions on the child’s learning and development during the transition from preschool to school. The project is based on a multidimensional conceptualisation of socioeconomic disadvantage following the concept of life domains (Lebenslagenkonzept, Glatzer/Hübinger 1990). The project’s goal is to develop a deeper understanding of learning and developmental processes of children from socioeconomically disadvantaged families during this transition in the interrelatedness of the surrounding contexts.

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