A large body of literature has been devoted to the question of how the design of educational systems influences the formation and intergenerational reproduction of social inequality. An important feature of educational systems is their level of educational stratification or differentiation, i.e. the separation of students into separate groups, tracks or streams for instructional purposes … Read more
Editorial: Introduction to “Mechanisms of educational stratification”
Diversion or inclusion? Alternative routes to higher education eligibility and inequality in educational attainment in Germany
In the 1960s, educational reforms have been initiated in Germany to make the rigid stratified school system more permeable. While maintaining between-school tracking in secondary education, several second-chance options have been introduced that established alternative routes to higher education. This study aims to evaluate whether these alternative routes were successful in reducing the levels of … Read more
Analysing Diversion Processes in German Secondary Education: School-Track Effects on Educational Aspirations
Educational aspirations can be regarded as a predictor of final educational attainment, rendering this construct highly relevant for analysing the development of educational inequalities in panel data settings. In the context of the German tracked secondary school system, we analysed school-track effects on the development of educational aspirations. Using data from five consecutive waves of the … Read more
Educational differentiation in secondary education and labour-market outcomes
Countries differ in the way in which they organise their education systems. With this special issue, we want to pay particular attention to the period of secondary education, the different institutional approaches that countries pursue during that phase and the long-term consequences for individual labour-market outcomes that follow from it. Secondary education is probably the … Read more
Does tracking really affect labour-market outcomes in the long run? Estimating the long-term effects of secondary-school tracking in West Germany
This paper investigates to what extent track attendance in secondary education affects labour-market prospects of West German individuals with similar starting conditions. The article also focuses on whether track attendance has a role in widening social inequality. Using pooled data from two panel studies on West Germans born between 1964 and 1986, the researchers investigate … Read more
Educational tracking and long-term outcomes by social origin: Seven countries in comparison
This paper uses longitudinal data from seven countries to assess how systems of educational tracking can impact on social mobility. Studies which simply compare comprehensive and tracked systems may be flawed, the research suggests, because of differences in how countries separate students for instructional purposes. The researchers used large-scale longitudinal data from Denmark, England, Finland, … Read more