Students’ transition into higher education from an international perspective Liesje Coertjens 1,2 & Taiga Brahm 3 & Caroline Trautwein 4 & Sari Lindblom-Ylänne 5 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016 Abstract In introducing the special issue on students’ transition into higher education, we emphasise the importance of expanding our understanding of students’ enculturation in higher education. Next to this, the editorial presents a working definition on transition and takes stock of the existing empirical lines of research on the subject of students’ transition into higher education. Further, we evidence that research primarily stems from Western countries and predominantly applies either a quantitative or a qualitative approach. We argue that a more international perspective and studies using different methodologies (including mixed-method approaches) are fruitful to advance this field further. Finally, we give an introduction on the nine empirical contributions in this special issue, stemming from an equal number of countries and applying quanti- tative, qualitative and mixed methods. Keywords Transition . Secondary education . Higher education . International High Educ DOI 10.1007/s10734-016-0092-y Liesje Coertjens and Taiga Brahm contributed equally to this article. * Liesje Coertjens Liesje.coertjens@uclouvain.be 1 Psychological Sciences Research Institute, Université Catholique de Louvain, IPSY–Place Cardinal Mercier 10 bte L3.05.01, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium 2 Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium 3 Chair for Economic Education, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany 4 Faculty of Education, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany 5 Centre for Research and Development of Higher Education, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland