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Description: Educational adjustment, which includes multiple dimensions such as school engagement, performance, and belonging, may be especially important during educational transitions. Indeed, successful educational adjustment relates to an array of positive outcomes, such as higher well-being and later educational attainment (Upadyaya & Salmela-Aro, 2013). Most studies investigate individual differences in educational adjustment by comparing adolescents to other adolescents (for meta-analyses, see MacCann et al., 2020; Robson et al., 2020; Wu et al., 2021). Predictors of the differences in educational adjustment between adolescents include emotional intelligence, self-regulation, and academic self-concept. Additionally, extant empirical studies revealed that parents play a key role in successful educational adjustment notably through their expectations and their supportive behaviors (for meta-analyses, see Barger et al., 2019 and Pinquart & Ebeling, 2020). More specifically, extant empirical studies suggest that parental autonomy support is a positive predictor of educational adjustment (for a meta-analysis, see Vasquez et al., 2016; Ratelle et al., 2021). In contrast, parental psychological control was found to be negatively associated with educational adjustment concurrently, and longitudinally (Albert Sznitman et al., 2022; Yau et al., 2021). Yet, differences between adolescents regarding educational adjustment are fairly stable over time, and more research is needed to understand the antecedents of change over time in educational adjustment that occur at an individual level. The first objective of this study is to examine within-person processes by examining fluctuations in individual adolescents’ educational adjustment, which allows to better understand how parenting behaviors relate to each adolescent’s change over time in educational adjustment. Examining within-person bidirectional processes between parental behaviors, namely parental autonomy support and psychological control, and educational adjustment will allow us to test the direction of the associations between these parental behaviors and educational adjustment. The second objective of this study is to examine self-concept clarity as a mediator in these associations. Self-concept clarity refers to a clearly and confidently defined individual self-concept (Campbell et al., 1996). Self-concept clarity also reflects the internal consistency and temporal stability of this self-concept. Of note, self-concept clarity is considered an aspect of autonomy and identity, and is akin to the construct of authenticity (Schwartz et al., 2017). According to Self-Determination Theory (Ryan and Deci, 2017), autonomy supportive parents promote optimal child development, including educational adjustment, by satisfying their basic psychological need for autonomy (i.e., feelings of agency and authenticity). Parental autonomy support includes parental consideration of youth’s perspective and emotions, giving informative rather than evaluative feedback, and giving choices of possible actions (Mageau & Joussemet, 2023). Conversely, SDT suggests that parental psychological control can lead to autonomy frustration. Parental psychological control refers to parental behaviors that force youth to feel, act, or think in specific ways, notwithstanding their own perspective (e.g., using threats, inducing guilt; Mageau et al., 2015). According to SDT, levels of autonomy satisfaction vary within individuals (Ryan & Ryan, 2019). Thus, this theory applies to within-person processes and suggests that within-person changes in parental autonomy support and psychological control should relate to within-person changes in educational adjustment. In addition to educational adjustment, parental autonomy support fosters positive identity development among youth (Ratelle & Guay, 2023). More specifically, autonomy support may promote higher self-concept clarity. According to SDT, parental autonomy support facilitates the development of a clearly defined self because it allows youth to develop an authentic inner compass, which reflects their self-guiding schemas (e.g., values, interests, and goals; Assor, 2017; Assor et al., 2020). This inner compass guides youth's actions and helps them make decisions congruent with their true self. Autonomy support may facilitate identity formation through youth satisfaction of psychological need for autonomy, which promotes career identity exploration and commitment. Conversely, parental control is associated with autonomy frustration, which may hinder identity development, including career identity exploration (Ratelle & Guay, 2023). Although most extant studies examined how parental autonomy support or psychological control predicts youth educational adjustment or identity development, these links are most likely bidirectional. According to the vigilant care model, parents may increase their levels of controlling behaviors and display lower levels of autonomy support when they perceive that their youth experience difficulties in their psychological or educational adjustment (Omer et al., 2016). Similarly, parents may react to lower educational adjustment or self-concept clarity with higher levels of controlling behaviors because they do not know how to help their youth with identity development or because they are ego-involved and wish to promote their youth achievements to increase their own self-esteem (Ratelle & Guay, 2023). Providing empirical support for SDT, several empirical studies suggest that the quality of parent-youth relationships is associated with higher self-concept clarity and more broadly, identity development during adolescence (Hertel, 2017; Albert Sznitman et al., 2022). Moreover, one study examined and found bidirectional and positive associations between the quality of parent-child relationship and self-concept clarity using a within-person research design (i.e., Becht et al., 2017). Additional empirical evidence suggests that the relations between parental behaviors and educational adjustment are also bidirectional (Ahn et al., 2022; Cimon-Paquet et al., 2023; Kiuru et al., 2020). Nonetheless, the processes underlying the bidirectional associations between parenting and educational adjustment are still unclear. According to SDT, through satisfaction with psychological needs, autonomy support may promote higher self-concept clarity, which, in turn, may foster educational adjustment within youth as they develop clearer goals and career identities. Relatedly, empirical research showed that higher self-concept clarity relates to higher educational adjustment during adolescence (Van der Aar et al., 2022). Grounded in Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2017), the aim of the current study is to examine the within-person longitudinal and bidirectional links between parental autonomy support, parental psychological control, and educational adjustment during school transitions. The second objective of this study is to examine self-concept clarity as a potential mediator of the links between parental behaviors and educational attainment.