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Upward track mobility into academic upper secondary education: Effects of challenging parental expectations, immigrant origin, and older siblings on students' educational choices
... Parents who come from a high socio-economic background or social class tend to be more actively involved in their children's education, although the influence of parental background is not necessarily the only factor that drives a child's success in education. Other studies argue that middle-class parental factors also have an impact on their students' educational success at school (Kobakhidze et al., 2023;Kohlmeier & Fischer-Neumann, 2024). Parental involvement in a child's education needs to be seen from various perspectives, with a special focus on the role of schools as the main factor in encouraging parents to be involved in their children's education. ...
The curriculum expects parental involvement in their children's education. Actively involving parents in the learning process can improve student learning outcomes. But the fact is that many schools do not involve parents because of social gaps. It is urgent to study the gap between the expectation that parents are involved in schools and the fact that many schools do not involve parents. This study aims to determine the background of the parents studied and to provide a descriptive analysis of the school's cooperation with parents in stimulating them to be involved in their children's education. The research sample consisted of 285 parents of junior high school social studies students who were selected randomly. The study used quantitative data, collected through a questionnaire that was compiled and developed based on indicators. The data analysis technique used descriptive statistics with the help of SPSS version 25.0 by calculating the mean, percentage, and standard deviation for each indicator and interpreting them. The results found a significant relationship between school and parent collaboration in improving their children's education. The more the parents feel that their presence is appreciated by the school, the greater their involvement in their children's education. The conclusion reached was that a sound relationship established by the school can encourage parents to be directly involved in various educational activities and important activities organized by the school.
p style="text-align: justify;">In this study I examine the academic self-concept (ASC) of students who changed from vocational to academic tracking at the transition to upper secondary education in Germany. I ask (1) how their ASC differs to the ASC of their established peers in academic tracking, and (2) how their ASC is affected by the change in the learning environment. Using a subsample of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS; N = 4109), findings show that newcomers to academic tracking have a stronger ASC than their peers. However, social differences between the social milieu of origin and the one prevailing at school significantly reduce the ASC. These differences are interpreted as being social-habitual and tested via socioeconomic status, cultural capital, and parental solidarity expectations at the school level. Results differ according to immigrant origin; immigrant newcomers to academic tracking have higher ASC than their established peers, and context effects are more influential. I complement previous research by using a quantitative approach to test the theoretical mechanisms of a qualitative research perspective on upward mobility.</p
How does social mobility influence cultural taste and participation? Cultural reproduction theory predicts little change, while cultural mobility theory suggests more substantial makeover. This article explores the influence of upward educational and occupational mobility in reading literature, participation in highbrow activities, television watching, and music and food tastes, focusing on mobility from the secondary-level education and the working class to the higher education and the middle class. By analysing survey data (N = 2,813) collected in Finland in 2007 and 2018 with ordinary least squares regression, we show that educational mobility and occupational mobility are mostly differently related to tastes and participation. Both educationally and occupationally upwardly mobile people tend to participate more in highbrow activities, watch less television and dislike meat-heavy food, as is more typical to their social destination than to their social origins. Conversely, the educationally upwardly mobile, again more typical to their destination, tend to read more books, like light-ethnic food and classical music, and dislike popular folk, but occupational mobility is not associated with reading or liking light-ethnic food, and the occupationally mobile retain their original tastes in classical and popular folk music when education is controlled for. We discuss the implications of our results.
Compared to natives, young adults with an immigrant background are more likely to choose academic education over vocational education and training (VET). Our study investigates ethnic choice effects at different stages of the educational system. Based on longitudinal data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), we found that immigrant youths–when controlling for achievement and social background–were more likely to attend academic tracks in Grade 9, have higher participation rates in academic tracks at the upper-secondary level, are less likely to choose VET after lower-secondary education as well as after upper-secondary education, and switch more often to higher education after achieving an upper-secondary degree. Mediation analyses confirmed that these effects were largely shaped by differences in educational and occupational aspirations. Our study provides detailed insights into the transition pathways at different educational stages and the relevant mechanisms driving migration-specific choice effects. As ethnic choice effects are empirically well documented in international research, our investigation may contribute to a deeper understanding of educational inequalities in other European countries.
Although research indicates that students with immigrant backgrounds often have higher educational aspirations than students without immigrant backgrounds at the same performance level, little is known about the longitudinal development of this difference in aspirations. This article analyzes how idealistic and realistic educational aspirations from Grade 5 until Grade 9 in Germany develop for students from various migrant groups, compared with those without immigrant backgrounds at the same school track and at the same level of school performance. Drawing on different theoretical assumptions, we examine to what extent students (increasingly) adapt their aspirations to their school performance toward the end of compulsory schooling. Our empirical analysis uses data from the first five waves (Grades 5–9; 2010/11–2014/15) of the National Educational Panel Study in Germany ( N = 5,542). Random-effects model results show a positive association between students’ school performance and their idealistic and realistic aspirations, and this association tends to increase over time. However, there is no uniform pattern in students’ aspiration trajectories. Some migrant groups (Poland, Southern Europe, former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) have similar aspiration trajectories as students without immigrant backgrounds at the same performance level, while other groups (Turkey, Northern and Western Europe, and others) maintain higher idealistic aspirations. Controlling for school performance, only students of Turkish origin also maintain higher realistic aspirations until Grade 9. These findings allow us to better understand the conditions behind the educational disadvantages of some migrant groups and offer insights into how best to further mitigate inequalities in educational outcomes.
Aspirations and expectations are conceptually and empirically different. Given their differential impact on various educational outcomes, it is expected that they, and consequently their convergence, would be affected by different factors. This study examines the factors leading to high aspirations, high expectations and to their alignment by using cross-sectional data on 7th and 8th grade students in Qatar. Results from our study demonstrate that aspirations are affected by attitudinal factors and student grades alone, while expectations are significantly influenced by demographic factors (ethnicity, gender, school type, parent occupation). Parental expectations are influential in shaping student expectations but not student aspirations. The alignment of high aspirations with high expectations were determined by parental expectations, student grades and attitudinal factors. It appears that parental expectations play a critical role in bringing together high aspirations and high expectations. These results, the implications of the research and suggestions for future research are discussed further.
Although siblings may differ considerably, the similarities between them are often an important source of emotional support in one's life and influence one's life course trajectories. In this review on the topic of sibling relationship and cross‐sibling effect interactions, we aim to encourage research interest and facilitate knowledge building. We begin our review by highlighting how the parental home may induce differentiation between siblings. Next, we illustrate the theories explaining sibling similarities and differences and discuss the factors that stimulate these. Throughout the review, we do not only highlight the complex mechanisms by which siblings imitate yet differentiate themselves, but also mutually relate to their life courses and education. New understandings of how similarities between siblings can simultaneously act as powerful influences and negative examples are provided.
The agenda for widening participation in higher education has led to increasing numbers of students with a broader range of education and family backgrounds. However, transitioning to the university landscape remains a highly complex negotiation process, especially for first‐in‐family students, who cannot draw on previous experience from higher education in their families. Gaining access to informational capital—a combination of cultural and social capital—plays a crucial role in managing education transitions. We draw on rich empirical data obtained from 26 autobiographical narrative interviews with first‐in‐family university students in Austria to investigate how transitions to university are affected by informational capital. We also explore how access to informational capital was influenced by (1) institutional practices, such as initiatives to support students, especially first‐year students; and (2) cultural fit—the extent to which a student's cultural capital corresponded with the dominant cultural capital in the field of their chosen discipline or higher education establishment. Our findings show that gaining access to informational capital was strongly affected by the institutional practices at universities within the different disciplines, thus highlighting the importance of higher education institutions in supporting their students during transition processes. We conclude with policy implications for how higher education institutions can assist first‐in‐family students to succeed at university.
In tracked and highly stratified educational systems, where educational reproduction is particularly strong, the chances of students to achieve more education than their parents did are truncated. Little is known, however, what may help students raised in lower-educated families to become upwardly mobile at the transition to upper-secondary education. In tracked educational systems, this transition is decisive for ultimate educational attainment across the life course. The study addresses this research gap by examining whether quality of social relationships (i.e., social capital) among students, parents, and teachers matters for student and teacher assessment of students’ agentic capabilities (i.e., work habits) at age 15. If so, the question is whether these assessments help students become enrolled in high-status upper-secondary school tracks at age 18, thus achieving educational upward mobility. The analyses are based on 401 students from two cohorts in the German- and French-speaking parts of Switzerland, interviewed at the ages of 15 (T1) and 18 (T2) (60.35% females, Mage15 = 15.2, SDage15 = 0.2; 58.35% older cohort), including data collected by questionnaire from primary caregivers and teachers at student age of 15. The students come from families where highest parental education attainment is below the high-status academic or vocational baccalaureate in upper-secondary education. They may thus experience the opportunity to gain access to these high-status tracks at the transition to upper-secondary education. A structural equation model reveals the role of student assessment of their agentic capabilities and teacher assessment of these competencies in mediating the relation of social capital accrued at home and at school to educational upward mobility. This novel evidence on mechanisms of social advancement may be prone to inform interventions helping students from less-educated families to succeed in tracked and stratified educational systems.
Studies in social stratification have used siblings as a tool to learn about the intergenerational transmission of advantage but less often have asked how siblings impact one another’s life chances. The author draws on social capital theory and hypothesizes that when youths attend college, they increase the probability that their siblings attend college. The author further hypothesizes that this effect is strongest among youths whose parents do not have college degrees. Findings from a U.S. national probability sample support both hypotheses. Although it is possible that confounding factors drive the estimates, the author conducts robustness checks that show that confounding would need to be very atypically strong to invalidate a causal interpretation. The positive main effect suggests that an intragenerational transmission of educational advantage exists alongside the intergenerational transmission that receives more attention. Effect heterogeneity points to the potential redundancy of college-educated siblings’ benefits when youths already receive similar benefits from college-educated parents.
Purpose: For young people with a migrant background in Germany transition from school to company-based vocational training is much more difficult than for non-migrants. This remains true, when data is controlled for the lower performance of young migrants in general education. In this paper we investigate if and how far the chances of transition to company-based vocational training and the acquisition of different school leaving certificates depend from the migration generation and the region of origin of young migrants. The question is, if disadvantages of young migrants diminish with a longer stay of their family in Germany and if this is also the case for the different groups of regions of origin (Southern Europe, East Europe, Turkey, other Middle East and North Africa, Other regions). Methods: We conduct multivariate analyses on the basis of data from the German Educational Panel Study (NEPS). Our analyses relate to young people who left a general education school after Year 9 in the summer of 2011 or Year 10 in the summer of 2012. Our database comprises information provided by a total of 5,952 school leavers. Results: For all four origin groups worse chances in comparison to non-migrants were detected. But there are differences in the disadvantages of opportunity between the various groups. They acquire more often lower school qualifications than their counterparts not from a migrant background and also have worse chances than the latter of successfully progressing to company-based vocational education and training. This applies even if other important influencing factors such as social origin are taken into account. Young people from a Turkish or Arab background have the lowest chances in general education and vocational training. As generation status rises disadvantages diminish for all origin groups, but with different magnitudes. A clear upwards-directed integration can be observed solely for the East European origin group. Conclusion: The results of our analyses signalise a clear need for action on the part of German policy makers and German society to reduce the educational disadvantages suffered by young migrants and to develop an effective support mechanism. Integration is rarely achieved in the short term. It is a long-term task which frequently extends over several generations.
This article explores how one cohort of first-in-family students narrated their movement into and through university, proposed as a form of boundary crossing. These metaphors emerged from the stories that students told about their persistence, with references ranging from institutional or organisational boundaries through to those imposed by self and others. Applying the sensitizing lens of boundary crossing, an analysis is provided of how learners navigated their transition into university and the types of persistence behaviours adopted. The focus is on those who traversed these boundaries, considering the nature of incursions and the ways these were negotiated within students’ everyday lives. This cohort all self-identified as being the first in their family to attend university but also acknowledged a variety of additional social, cultural and economic factors that impacted upon their educational journey.
The role of older siblings in younger siblings’ academic socialization becomes increasingly salient during adolescence. This longitudinal study examines the developmental mechanisms through which older siblings shape younger siblings’ academic outcomes and whether older siblings’ peer affiliations predict younger siblings’ educational aspirations and attainment. Data consisted of responses from 395 target adolescents (Mage = 12.22 years, 48.9% female; 51.6% African American, 38.5% European American) and their older siblings (Mage = 14.65 years, 50.1% female) across nine years. The findings showed that older siblings’ affiliation with academically disengaged peers at 7th grade predicted younger siblings’ decreased affiliation with academically engaged peers and increased affiliation with disengaged peers at 9th grade. In addition, younger siblings’ affiliation with academically engaged peers predicted greater educational aspirations at 11th grade, which in turn were related to higher postsecondary educational attainment. The identification of developmental processes through which older siblings were associated with younger siblings’ academic success may aid in creating supportive social environments in which adolescents can thrive.
Cultural capital is frequently measured via the number of books in a respondent’s household. Despite this measure’s widespread use, its quality remains largely unclear. To remedy this, we conducted a comprehensive assessment of the measurement properties of two items measuring past and present objectified cultural capital via the number of books in the household of the respondent’s family of origin and the respondent’s current household, respectively. For this purpose, we used data (N = 3260) from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) 2012 survey in Germany and the 2015 wave of a follow-up study (PIAAC-L). We analyzed the two items’ distributions (total sample and separately by age-group), test-retest reliability over 3 years (for past cultural capital only), and their convergent and divergent validity (i.e., correlations with socioeconomic status, literacy and numeracy skills, and cultural and literary activities).
Our analyses (1) reveal that past and present objectified cultural capital are substantially but not perfectly related (ρ = .52), which may reflect intergenerational transmission; (2) demonstrate that the item measuring past objectified cultural capital shows high test-retest reliability over three years (ρ = .74); and (3) attest to both the convergent and divergent reliability of both items, as indicated by systematic yet only small to medium-sized correlations with socioeconomic status, literacy and numeracy skills, and cultural and literary activities. At the same time, our analyses (4) underscore that cultural capital is not a uniform construct, highlighting that the number of books captures a specific aspect of the concept (i.e., objectified cultural capital). Our findings can serve as a benchmark for future research on cultural capital.
This paper aims to expand knowledge on the effects of an international migration on parent–adult child relationships. We develop a typology, include non-migrants in the country of origin for comparison, and consider transnational families. Analyses are based on the Turkish 2000 Families Study, using information of adult non-co-resident children about their relationships with their parents. The research questions are: Do intergenerational solidarity types in migrant families reflect the patterns prevalent in the origin context or migration-specific adjustments? Do solidarity types of migrants differ, depending on whether they are transnational, of first- or second-generation children? Are differences due to composition effects? Latent class analysis shows four solidarity types. Their prevalence differs remarkably across the migrant groups. The proportion of the full-solidarity type is larger and that of the autonomous type is smaller in the relationships of first- and second-generation children with their migrant parents than among stayer dyads in Turkey. In transnational relationships, there is less full solidarity, and autonomous relationships are more likely. All migrant groups display less advice-oriented and more material-oriented support relationships. These results indicate stronger intergenerational cohesion in non-transnational migrant families and few changes across migrant generations. The observed differences are not due to composition effects.
This article documents the number of target persons participating in the panel surveys of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) as well as the number of respondents who temporarily dropout and of those leaving the panel (attrition). NEPS comprises panel surveys with six mutually exclusive starting cohorts covering the complete life span. Sample sizes, numbers of participants and temporary as well as final dropouts and participation rates are reported in detail for each wave and for subsamples, if applicable. Sample particularities, such as the conversion of temporary dropouts into final ones, are elaborated on. All figures presented are derived from the corresponding Scientific Use Files (SUFs) published by February 1, 2018. Selectivity due to attrition (i.e., final dropouts) is studied. For this purpose, we examine how attrition distorts the NEPS samples with respect to relevant design variables (such as stratification criteria) and panel member characteristics (like sex and birth year). In detail, we study the panel status of each panel member that is being part of the panel or having dropped out finally, along all of the panel waves with respect to starting cohort and population specific characteristics. We conclude this article with some recommendations for dealing with the detected selection bias in statistical analyses.
This paper presents two typologies: The first one is for habitus transformation, which can be considered typical for people who are upwardly mobile regardless of ethnic background or gender. The second one shows typical differences between educational climbers with and without a migration background. The central difference can be described by the term 'sphere discrepancy' (between inner and outer sphere) and the contradictory expectations within migrant families: To become successful in the outer sphere (social mobility) but also to hold on to the traditions and lifestyles of the inner sphere (loyalty). To conclude, the causes for this are explained.
Zu den Leitmodellen unserer westlichen Gesellschaft zählt das meritokratische Prinzip, nach dem jeder Mensch seinen ‚Platz‘ in der Gesellschaft auf der Grundlage seiner individuellen Leistung einnimmt. Dies gilt insbesondere für den Bildungserfolg und dem damit häufig zusammenhängenden beruflichen Status, den eine Person erlangt. Mit ihrem öffentlichen Bildungssystem, das jedem zugänglich sein soll, suggeriert die Meritokratie, dass jeder Mensch am Wettbewerb um Bildungstitel teilhaben könne und daher eine prinzipielle Chancengleichheit bestünde.
p>Panel attrition is one of the main concerns to longitudinal surveys, and may be especially problematic when vulnerable populations are concerned. This study looks into nonresponse and attrition in the Swiss Household Panel (SHP), focusing on the following two questions: (1) To what extent does attrition create bias in means and frequencies, and does weighting correct for this? (2) Are respondents who are at risk of vulnerability more likely to drop out from the SHP compared to others and if so, why? Our results based on data from 1999 to 2012 indicate that there are different nonresponse patterns in the SHP and that attrition is not completely at random, but is related to specific characteristics that are often associated with vulnerability. In particular respondents with a migration background, a low level of education, who are unemployed or whose health status is poor are more likely to drop out. Using weights only partially corrects for the selective dropout. Although general population surveys such as the SHP provide unique opportunities to study vulnerability in the population, researchers should be aware that overall prevalence of vulnerability is most likely underestimated.</p
This study examines same-sex siblings’ educational mobility using high-quality register data from Norway. The study explores how the educational level of younger siblings varies with the education of parents and firstborn siblings. Younger siblings are generally more likely to attain the same education as the eldest. Even though the distance and direction of educational mobility co-varies between the eldest and younger siblings, the association appears weaker when the firstborn children of highly educated parents only attain compulsory schooling. Furthermore, educational similarity within and across generations is particularly widespread among the families with the least and most educated parents. The study demonstrates how differentials in educational attainment by family background increase when comparing sibling pairs rather than individuals. Accordingly, researchers must also consider family outcomes to understand the stratification that follows intergenerational mobility.
Enrollments in higher education have expanded greatly, but without elimination of all forms of inequality. Research in industrialized countries has shown that the path students follow in their transition from secondary school continues to be associated with their social class. This study provides quantitative evidence of that relationship in a non-industrial country like Chile. Multinomial logistic and linear regression of university admission data managed by the Department of Evaluation, Measurement and Registration describing 130,000 applicants for the years 2015 and 2017 were used to estimate the probability of a member of a particular social class choosing a given university and academic field of study. The results show differences regarding law programs and science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs. Class differences were particularly important in the choice of university. Working-class students were more likely to apply to public universities, avoiding elite and especially private institutions. The findings provide further support for Bourdieu's habitus explanation of class reproduction. They suggest more attention to the level of segregation in Chilean higher education and the factors that produce it.
This qualitative case study provides an analysis of the structuring of middle-class aspirations at one rural university in the United States. Using a Bourdieusian framework offered by Zipin and colleagues (2015), findings suggest that although student participants in our study are similarly positioned relative to social class background, those from distinct geographic areas (i.e., rural and urban) displayed key differences in expressions of college-going and future aspirations. We argue that place, as an important feature of one’s habitus, structures students’ college-going and future aspirations. Within the highly stratified context of higher education in the United States, few scholars have acknowledged the power of geography and place in shaping behaviors, choices, and possibilities for students. In doing so, this research contributes to a growing global body of literature examining the role of place in shaping students’ higher education aspirations, access, experiences, and outcomes.
Family works as a strong force for the intergenerational persistence of inequality. Thisstudy takes a closer look into families and investigates how the heterogeneity in family tiesmay affect individual social mobility. Using an economic sociology approach, we adoptthe concept of intergenerational solidarity to explicate how family ties vary in nature. Twodimensions of intergenerational solidarity are featured: emotional closeness and strengthof family obligations. Our empirical work is based on the World Value Survey microdatafrom 55 countries. Controlling for the institutional heterogeneity between countries, theestimation results show two robust international regularities. Firstly, the emotional closenessbetween parents and offspring is positively related to both the possibility of upwardoccupational mobility and the extent of moving up. Secondly, the strength of obligationsfelt towards family members is negatively associated with the possibility of moving up.The obligations of caring for parents may possibly influence offspring’s decision makingswhen they face opportunities or life changes that may hinder them from climbing the socialladder.
The children of immigrants usually make more ambitious enrolment choices than native students with comparable socioeconomic status and academic achievement. Less is known about how ethnic choice effects vary by socioeconomic status and previous achievement simultaneously, and whether they only hold true for some immigrant–native comparisons. Moreover, few studies investigate outcomes after the educational transition, so the consequences of ambitious choices remain unclear. I investigate immigrant–native gaps in the decision to enroll in academic upper secondary education and in outcomes after the transition for two cohorts of French students. I find that ethnic choice effects are positive only for students with an intermediate or working class background, and are largest for those with lower to middle achievement from the working class. Migrant disadvantages in outcomes after the transition were reduced between cohorts. In the latest cohort, immigrant-origin and native students enrolled in academic upper secondary were equally likely to complete the track and enroll in tertiary education. However, immigrant-origin students were still disadvantaged in terms of graduation track, grades, and timing. Using counterfactual reweighting strategies, I show that similar and substantial portions of these disadvantages were explained by the ambitious academic choices and lower prior performance of immigrant-origin students. However, while their ambitious choices also increase enrolment rates and hence overall attainment for immigrant-origin students, their lower prior performance reduces both. I suggest that policies should reduce immigrant disadvantages in early achievement to allow high-aspiring, yet often disadvantaged, immigrant-origin students to succeed in ambitious educational paths.
This paper uses data on age‐adjacent sibling pairs from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to test for causal interdependencies between the high school graduation outcomes of older and younger siblings. Even after controlling for observable background characteristics, the graduation probability of an individual whose sibling graduated from high school exceeds the graduation probability of an individual whose sibling did not graduate by a large amount. However, this difference does not measure the causal effect of sibling graduation because of unobserved family factors and genuine simultaneity in the determination of all siblings' graduation outcomes. To measure the causal effect of sibling achievement on own achievement, I specify models in which sibling achievement is endogenous and estimate these models by two‐stage methods using sibling‐specific background characteristics as instruments. The evidence indicates that older sibling achievement has a positive causal effect on younger sibling achievement but that younger sibling achievement has no significant influence on older sibling achievement. These results are consistent with a model of intrafamily allocation in which parents learn about child endowments sequentially.
Past research demonstrates that familial and community support can aid the academic success of Latino/a students. However, few studies explore how older siblings influence their younger siblings’ education trajectory including primary, secondary, and post-secondary education. Drawing on 25 in-depth interviews with Latino/a first-generation college students at a large research university in Southern California, I find that older siblings assist their younger family members by (a) choosing schools, (b) assisting with reading comprehension, (c) helping with homework assignments, and (d) post-high school preparation. In doing do, they demystify norms and rules about education and attempt to position their loved ones on a path of upward mobility. I capture the labor Latino/a children of immigrants provide to their families and how these contributions can result in tensions between parents and children. Findings advance scholarship on intra-immigrant family brokering, Latino/a families, and education.
It is a well-established finding in the literature that immigrants make ambitious educational choices. Once controlling for prior achievement and socioeconomic status, children of immigrants are more likely than natives to switch to the more demanding educational tracks. However, less is known about whether immigrants can actually benefit from these optimistic choices in terms of educational attainment or whether they have a higher risk of dropping out from the more demanding tracks. By focusing on a representative sample of adolescents with and without immigrant background in Germany, this contribution investigates how enrolment and completion rates change over time—from the end of lower secondary education until the end of upper secondary education—and how this affects ethnic inequalities in educational outcomes. When comparing academic completion rates and academic enrolment rates in grade 9, we observe long-term improvements within the immigrant group as a result of immigrants’ ambitious choices. When comparing both outcomes between natives and immigrants, however, ethnic differences in academic completion rates remain comparable to the disparities in enrolment rates as observed in grade 9.
The authors draw on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of cultural reproduction to develop a formal model of the pathways through which cultural capital acts to enhance children's educational and socioeconomic success. The authors' approach brings conceptual and empirical clarity to an important area of study. Their model describes how parents transmit cultural capital to their children and how children convert cultural capital into educational success. It also provides a behavioral framework for interpreting parental investments in cultural capital. The authors review results from existing empirical research on the role of cultural capital in education to demonstrate the usefulness of their model for interpretative purposes, and they use National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979--Children and Young Adults survey data to test some of its implications.
Scholars have proposed that immigrant optimism explains why some immigrant students outperform their United States‐born peers academically. Yet, immigrant optimism has not been directly measured. This study aims to test the immigrant optimism hypothesis by operationalizing it using the Children’s Hope Scale. Using structural equation modeling, the author examined the associations between hope, immigrant generation, citizenship status, and academic outcomes among a sample of 2,369 Latino 14‐ to 17‐year‐old students. Though no difference by immigrant generation was found, undocumented students were more hopeful than their documented peers. This finding suggests that the documentation status has an indirect relative effect on academic outcomes via hope. This article reexamines the immigrant optimism as a resource that could be fostered among Latino youth, regardless of immigrant status.
In studies of educational achievement, students’ self-reported number of books in the family home is a frequently used proxy for social, cultural, and economic background. Absent hard evidence about what this variable captures or how well, its use has been motivated by strong associations with student outcomes. I show that these associations rest on two types of endogeneity: Low achievers accrue fewer books and are also prone to underestimate their number. The conclusion is substantiated both by comparing reports by students and their parents and by the fact that girls report on average higher numbers despite being similar to boys on other measures of social background. The endogenous bias is large enough to overturn classical attenuation bias; it distorts cross-country patterns and invalidates many common study designs. These findings serve as a caution against overreliance on standard regression assumptions and contribute to ongoing debates about the empirical robustness of social science.
Social class differences in educational decision-making form an important explanation for persisting educational inequalities, particularly in choice-driven systems with early tracking. Nevertheless, little is known about the process preceding these choices, especially when school and track choice are interrelated. Building on school choice literature, this study aims to explore how parents from different social backgrounds shape their decision-making process at the transition from primary to secondary education in Flanders (Belgium). To this end, we adopt an explanatory mixed-methods design. Quantitative findings from a parent survey conducted in 36 primary schools were complemented with 32 in-depth interviews with parents. Our findings show two parental profiles regarding educational decision-making, which can be traced back to differences in social and cultural capital. Although effective navigation of the complex field of educational decision-making proved to be strongly class related, parents’ educational and immigrant biographies led to specific approaches, transcending the middle class versus working class binary.
The accounts of upwardly mobile professionals can shed light on conflict and cultural dispositions (what Bourdieu referred to as habitus). There are currently few empirical studies investigating the specific aspects of the habitus that might change or the implications of these changes on cross‐class relationships. Drawing on qualitative interviews with a total of 30 white and African American upwardly mobile individuals, we explore three ways in which upwardly mobile individuals experience a shift in their habitus and the implications of these changes on interactions with family members, friends, and colleagues. Specifically, upwardly mobile professionals report significant change in their dispositions toward new experiences and “horizons,” food and health, and language and communication. These changes foster “flashpoints” of conflict with non‐upwardly mobile family members. We find that whites and African Americans report very similar types of conflicts, but African Americans in our study downplay the conflict more than their white counterparts.
This letter compares the performance of multiple imputation and listwise deletion using a simulation approach. The focus is on data that are “missing not at random” (MNAR), in which case both multiple imputation and listwise deletion are known to be biased. In these simulations, multiple imputation yields results that are frequently more biased, less efficient, and with worse coverage than listwise deletion when data are MNAR. This is the case even with very strong correlations between fully observed variables and variables with missing values, such that the data are very nearly “missing at random.” These results recommend caution when comparing the results from multiple imputation and listwise deletion, when the true data generating process is unknown.
Intergenerational transfers of money, time, and space are important manifestations of functional solidarity in contemporary societies. Whereas previous studies have mainly addressed the causes and consequences of intergenerational support of natives, the population of foreign origin has often been neglected or limited to a specific (ethnic) population. Therefore, this study focuses on intergenerational functional solidarity patterns between migrants and natives as well as within migrant families using the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Overall, the empirical analyses prove that European families are strongly connected by different forms of functional solidarity. However, migration does matter. In addition to differences between natives and migrants, the analyses also highlight specific patterns within migrants according to household composition, duration of stay, and country of origin.
Starting out from the frequent empirical finding that immigrants
exhibit higher educational aspirations than non-immigrants, we
analyse the role of immigrants’ value of education, i.e. the
subjective belief that education is beneficial for one’s life, in
idealistic and realistic educational aspirations in four distinct
institutional settings, comparing Sweden, Germany, the
Netherlands and England. While the first part of the analyses
relates to how immigrants differ from non-immigrants in the value
they assign to education, the second part centres on country
differences considering immigrant integration policies and
education systems as crucial factors. A third part relates to the
links between the value of education and educational aspirations
to gain some insight into how the value of education may
contribute to educational decisions. Analyses are based on
longitudinal data of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal
Survey in Four European Countries (CILS4EU). While results show
that immigrants assign a higher value to education, the value of
education does play a minor role in idealistic and realistic
educational aspirations. The results of the country comparison are
rather ambivalent, including very weak support for the argument
that immigrants strive for education to a higher extent in
countries with less favourable conditions.
This article presents the results of a research project which examined the factors enabling educational upward mobility. The findings are based on 58 qualitative interviews with successful first-generation students who are scholarship holders from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation. From an in-depth analysis of the individual resources, three general requirements of upward mobility are derived. Based on these it is possible to distinguish three types of educational upward mobility. These types differ in the barriers they were confronted with, the resources available to them, the structure of their educational path and the way they experience upward mobility. A spectrum becomes apparent: at one end we find upward mobility due to a family which offers relevant resources, and at the other we see mobility despite a family which impedes higher educational attainment. The conclusion describes key aspects towards the development of a theory of educational upward mobility.
The paper develops a theoretical model for the interaction between parental resources, such as economic, cultural and social capital, and cross-cultural differences, such as the belonging to a collectivistic or individualistic culture, on parental educational investments and socialization practices. It investigates empirically differences in educational aspirations, the perceived instrumentality and social costs of schooling,
educational aims, parental stimulation and control, and exposure of the children in institutional settings outside family and school in three ethnic groups in Germany. The standardized cross-sectional study with 1.523 mothers in a 2 x 3 x 4 design was performed in two receiving contexts (Hamburg and Saxony) with three ethnic
groups (Turkish, Vietnamese and German families) and four age groups of children (transition to Kindergarten, to primary school, to lower, and higher secondary school). Both migrant groups perceive a higher instrumentality of schooling than native mothers, but perceive also higher social costs, such as alienation in the parentchild relationship. Multivariate analyses reveal several interaction effects between ethnic membership and educational aims, expectations, and aspirations.
This article examines whether gender segregation across fields of study in higher education varies between children coming from different socio-economic groups, and changed across time. A possible intersectionality between gender and socio-economic background has hardly been addressed thus far. Using Dutch survey data covering cohorts born between the 1930s and 1980s, I study trends in gender segregation across seven broad fields in post-secondary education, and examine whether gender segregation is different across parental educational levels. Segregation is found to diminish over time, although the trend has stalled. Segregation is, in some fields, less strong among children of higher social origins, both because higher-socio-economic status (SES) daughters are more likely to enrol in the science, technology, engineering, and math fields, and because higher-SES sons are more likely to enrol in health than their lower-SES counterparts. Tentative explanations for these findings are presented that relate to stronger gender-typical socialization in lower-SES families, and potential differential abilities in mathematics and languages across SES groups.
This article examines class as a potential source of stigma faculty members from low-socioeconomic-status (low-SES) backgrounds. Based on 47 interviews with demographically diverse respondents at a wide range of institutions, the article examines respondents’ narratives of direct and indirect stigmatization around class as well as respondents’ efforts at managing these potential stigmas. I find that respondents describe primarily indirect stigmas in which low-SES experiences and concerns are minimized, covered over, or excluded in favor of a normative presentation of middle-class status and experiences. I show the ways that respondents use emotion work to manage both their own responses and the anticipated responses of their colleagues when challenging normative narratives of middle-class homogeneity.
Germany’s Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector is the major channel for the integration of a growing number of students with a migrant background – a group that is overrepresented among non-university school tracks leading towards VET. However, their participation in VET is lower compared to Germans. I argue that previous studies have neglected the role of educational preferences in explaining these disparities. Building on the literature on secondary effects of ethnic origin, I test whether migrants self-select into academic tracks to pursue higher academic qualifications and to what extent this selection explains ethnic inequality in VET access. Using a longitudinal sample of students at the end of lower secondary education (NEPS, N=6247), this study shows that self-selection accounts for 40% of ethnic disparities in VET access. However, further analysis reveals that self-selection at this stage should be understood as complementary to, rather than competing with, alternative explanations, such as discrimination. Implications for research and policy are discussed.
Although often disadvantaged with respect to educational achievement, immigrants usually outperform natives at educational decisions, achievement inequalities taken into account. However, less is known about whether these ethnic premia hold true for all SES-groups and for males and females alike. Using data from the German part of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries (CILS4EU) and focussing on the transition after lower secondary education into academic tracks or the vocational training system and the labour market, positive choice effects among immigrants are confirmed. However, this only holds true for native-immigrant comparisons of low-SES groups. Furthermore, immigrant girls seem to attain similar transitions compared to immigrant boys, indicating no additional female advantage for immigrant girls. However, group-specific analyses reveal that such a double advantage (female advantage in addition to positive choices among immigrants) actually exist for Turkish girls, with this group showing the highest probabilities of transition into upper secondary education. Regarding an explanation, positive choice effects among immigrants are due mainly to differences in aspirations and seem to be less attributable to perceived or expected discrimination on the labour market.
Despite an expansion of educational opportunities throughout the EU, access to university is still distributed based on social inequality. This tendency can be observed in all EU countries, with Germany, Austria and Slovakia showing particularly low levels of upward mobility. Many working-class students or other non-traditional students never even contemplate entering the field of higher education; others achieve university entry, but fail to overcome the obstacles faced in this field. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theoretical-methodological approach and based on 12 narrative, problem-centred interviews, this study presents a general habitus-oriented analysis of non-traditional university drop outs. We then focus on one case study to describe how the habitus of a non-traditional student is preformed through his family and school background and conflicts with the university field and its institutional habitus requirements. We show that students with a strong sense of their social position and ‘place’ (Bourdieu, 1990; Goffman, 1951) are particularly at risk of feeling like ‘cultural outsiders’ in the higher education field, a situation that leads to increased fears of failure. We conclude with a reflection on the relevance of Bourdieu’s relational thinking for understanding and addressing the underlying mechanisms of social inequality and a discussion of measures necessary to improve graduation rates for non-traditional students in Europe.
Compared to natives, students with immigrant background are – other things being equal – more likely to choose academic tracks over vocational education and training (VET) at upper-secondary level. Evidence of so-called ethnic choice effects is mostly based on education systems where vocational tracks are often regarded as ‘unfavourable’. Our study investigated ethnic choice effects at the end of compulsory school in Switzerland, a country with a strong VET sector offering competitive incentives, particularly for students with lower or average achievement. Based on longitudinal data from the ‘Transitions from Education to Employment’ (TREE) survey, we found that most migrant groups were more likely to choose academic-track
pathways preparing for university admission over VET preparing more directly for employment. Nested logistic regression analyses revealed that a large share of these ethnic choice effects was explained by immigrant optimism. Our findings shed light on general educational decision-making processes among migrant families and their potential consequences for ethnic inequality in post-compulsory education.
Differente und auch widerstreitende theoretische Annahmen und Modelle gehören zum Geschäft der Wissenschaft dazu wie die leidenschaftlich-diffuse – also durch die ganze Person eines Wissenschaftlers erfolgende – Parteinahme für einen jeweiligen theoretischen Ansatz. Darin – in der „vollständige[n], ausschließliche[n] Hingabe an die Sache“ – zeigt sich nach Oevermann (1996, S. 105) gerade ein Moment der Professionalisiertheit des Berufswissenschaftlers. Allerdings ist diese engagierte Parteinahme nur eine Seite der Medaille, denn es braucht auch das Vermögen der Distanzierung und spezifischen Begrenzung dieses diffusen Bezuges auf eine Sache.
Logistic regression estimates do not behave like linear regression estimates in one important respect: They are affected by omitted variables, even when these variables are unrelated to the independent variables in the model. This fact has important implications that have gone largely unnoticed by sociologists. Importantly, we cannot straightforwardly interpret log-odds ratios or odds ratios as effect measures, because they also reflect the degree of unobserved heterogeneity in the model. In addition, we cannot compare log-odds ratios or odds ratios for similar models across groups, samples, or time points, or across models with different independent variables in a sample. This article discusses these problems and possible ways of overcoming them.
Educational aspirations are generally based on past academic achievement and families’ endowment with the resources needed to reach targeted educational levels. However, although they perform worse at school and hold lower social status, previous research observes that some ethnic minorities tend to express higher educational ambitions than natives. This study discusses and tests possible reasons for this striking finding using German data from the Young Immigrants in the German and Israeli Educational Systems project, which includes families from Turkey and the former Soviet Union. The results reveal that Turkish students hold higher aspirations than their native counterparts, whereas no aspiration gap was found between natives and adolescents from the former Soviet Union. While German students’ aspiration patterns can mainly be ascribed to status attainment motivation, Turkish students’ high educational ambitions seem to be stimulated by a desire of status upward mobility.
Recent studies have shown that ethnic minorities of immigrant origin are more likely to continue in education than students of the majority group with similar levels of achievement. Even though most research on this topic is still descriptive, different explanations have been proposed for these findings. The first explanation emerges from the social stratification literature on primary and secondary effects, which considers students’ decisions to continue in education a product of a rational strategy. According to this literature, the perception of labour market discrimination increases the costs of dropping out for ethnic minority students, who will therefore decide to continue into upper-secondary education more often than native majority students performing at the same level. The other explanation emerges from the literature on immigrants’ optimism and the positive selection of migration flows. According to these theories, ethnic minorities’ high continuation rates in education are a reflection of their ‘immigrant optimism’ and drive for success in the destination country. Building upon these prior investigations, this study aims to explain the high continuation rates to upper secondary education of ethnic minorities in England. First, I examine whether students’ anticipation of labour market discrimination motivates an ethnic compensation strategy in education, which translates into high educational expectations and, subsequently, high continuation rates to post-compulsory education. And second, I analyse the impact of students’ prior educational expectations on their transition rates to upper secondary education, particularly whether ethnic minorities’ early optimism eventually translates into actual educational choices. The survey Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE) and the student census National Pupil Database (NPD) are used to test the hypotheses. The results show that the ethnic gap in expectations relative to the White British majority is not related to anticipated discrimination, and ethnic minority students who anticipate labour market discrimination do not make different educational choices compared to those who do not anticipate discrimination. In contrast, prior educational expectations represent the main factor driving the transitions of ethnic minority students, thus supporting the immigrant optimism explanation.
Seit den 1970er Jahren ist die prekäre Bildungssituation von Migrantenkindern und -jugendlichen, die sich in der Bildungsbeteiligung und dem Bildungserfolg ablesen lässt, ein ungelöstes Problem auf schulpädagogischer, sozialwissenschaftlicher und gesellschaftlicher Ebene in Deutschland. Nicht zuletzt durch die PISA-Studie (vgl. Deutsches PISA-Konsortium 2001, 2002) werden immer wieder auf die weiterhin bestehenden Diskrepanzen zwischen den Bildungserfolgen von Migrantenkindern und den Kindern der autochthonen Bevölkerung hingewiesen (vgl. Diefenbach 2004; Statistisches Bundesamt 2008). Dabei rücken vor allem Kinder und Jugendliche aus türkeistämmigen Migrantenfamilien ins Zentrum der öffentlichen Diskussionen und Diskurse.