In the context of the 2000 Labour Forces survey Eurostat commissioned 14 EU member states and 5 Eastern European countries to include an additional set of questions ("ad hoc module") aimed to investigate the transition from school to working life. This project deals with both methodological and substantive issues which arise from the collection of these data. It consists of (1) an evaluation of the national implementation of the ad hoc module and (2) empirial analyses on substantive topics on transition research (such as social, gender and ethnic inequalities, job mismatches, and job search and mobility). A network of researchers centrally co-ordinated by Professor Walter Muller, one of the directs of the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research, are taking part in the project. The Centre for Educational Sociology is mainly involved in the assessment of data quality and comparability, through the evaluation of the national implementation of the module, and in the analysis of the cross-country differences and similarities in the effect of social origin on young people's educational attainment and early labour market outcomes.