Lesley Andres

Lesley Andres is a Professor in the Department of Educational Studies at the Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia (Vancouver campus). Her research focuses on life course trajectories, gender dynamics, and comparative higher education systems, with a particular emphasis on longitudinal studies. She leads the Canadian Paths on Life’s Way project, a mixed-methods longitudinal study tracking life experiences over decades. Her work examines educational attainment’s impact on employment, family dynamics, and well-being, often comparing Canada and Germany. Key themes include intergenerational inequality, policy impacts on education pathways, and pandemic-era shifts in work-life balance.

Research interests span social stratification, welfare regime comparisons, and the sociology of education. She has published extensively on topics like parental influence on extracurricular activities, transfer student experiences between colleges and universities, and the role of cultural capital in academic persistence.

Her recent work highlights how educational policies shape life trajectories and well-being, particularly during crises like the pandemic. She has pioneered methodologies for capturing complex life course patterns through longitudinal data analysis.