The aim of this article is to identify the consequences of the stream followed in high school on the professional opportunities of baccalaureate holders at the beginning of their career. By combining the 1995 panel of secondary level pupils with the survey on entry into adult life, we are able to identify the effects that … Read more
Baccalaureate Tracks and Employment at the End of Education: Contribution of the Educational Pathway and Analysis of Gender Gaps
Upper secondary tracks and student competencies: A selection or a causal effect? Evidence from the Italian case
This piece of research examines whether Italian students’ choice of educational track has a causal effect on general skills in reading and mathematics. The research, which relies on a population-level longitudinal dataset, looks at the choices students make at age 14 between four tracks: classical and scientific studies, a general humanistic track, technical, and vocational … Read more
Explaining gender segregation in higher education: longitudinal evidence on the French case
This article asks why gender gaps persist in higher education even though women’s attainment is higher than men’s across the OECD, and even though gender gaps at work are narrowing. Women are still under-represented in subjects such as engineering and computing, and over-represented in human sciences and humanities. The article tests a number of theories … Read more
Does ability grouping affect UK primary school pupils’ enjoyment of Maths and English?
This paper looks at how pupils’ enjoyment of the subjects they study is affected by the ability groups in which they are placed. Using data from the Millennium Cohort Study, which follows a sample of children born in the UK between 2000 and 2002, it finds those in a low ability group were less likely … Read more
Long-term labor market returns to upper secondary school track choice: Leveraging idiosyncratic variation in peers’ choices
This study looks at the possible benefits and disadvantages of choosing a vocational rather than an academic track in upper secondary education. While supporters of vocational education and training (VET) say it can provide a safety net for those at risk of dropping out of education or failing to enter the labour market, critics say … Read more
Educational tracking and personality formation: Evidence from a dual system
Research on the effects of educational selection has tended to focus on how it affects academic development and achievement. This project asks a different question: does the educational track on which we are placed as teenagers affect the development of personality traits? Personality traits continue to develop throughout the adolescent and early adult years, and … Read more
Editorial: Introduction to “Mechanisms of educational stratification”
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
Like parents, like children. Does the stratification of education systems moderate the direct effect of origins on destinations?
Using data from the European Social Survey, this study asks if selective education systems can moderate the effects of our origins on later success in the labor market while controlling for education. It finds no effect, regardless of the extent to which selection is based on the student’s abilities. The sample consists of nearly 40,000 … Read more
From social origin to selective high school courses: Ability grouping as a mechanism of securing social advantage in Israeli secondary education
This paper focuses on ability grouping in middle school as an important mechanism enabling students with privileged social backgrounds to increase their likelihood of enrollment in the most selective and prestigious high school programs, thus paving the way to higher academic degrees and more lucrative occupations. Using data from Israeli national standardized tests administered in … Read more
The effect of COVID-19-related school closures on students’ well-being: Evidence from Danish nationwide panel data
New research from Denmark suggests that in some respects students’ wellbeing improved during the Spring 2020 lockdown, and that this effect was strongest among students of lower socioeconomic status. The study used data from the Danish Student Wellbeing Study, which is carried out nationwide on an annual basis. It compared responses from students aged 12-15 … Read more