This paper looks at how education and family background shapes the occupation and earnings of a generation of Danes, and concludes that education plays a powerful role in explaining why children from advantaged backgrounds have higher earnings than chil-dren from disadvantaged backgrounds. The researchers studied all children born in Denmark between 1965 and 1971 and … Read more
Family Background, Educational Qualifications and Meritocratic Labor Market Allocation: Evidence from Danish Siblings
Aiming High and Missing the Mark? Educational Choice, Dropout Risk, and Achievement in Upper Secondary Education among Children of Immigrants in Denmark
This paper finds that high aspiration among young people from ethnic minority backgrounds can be a double-edged sword: it helps close the gap between these young people and their native-origin peers, but at the cost of higher drop-out rates. The research looks at the choices made by Danish youngsters at the age of 16, when … Read more
Tracking in the Italian Education System
In this report, we provide an overview of tracking, that is the choice of the type of secondary school, in Italy. First, we describe the structure of the Italian education system and its main reforms. We detail broad and curricular tracking both between and within schools. We focus on upper secondary school, since in Italy … Read more
Tracking and Sorting in the German Educational System. Literature review and analyses of the birth cohorts 1970-1980
This report reviews the key modes of creating social dispersion in the German educational system by sorting students into distinct groups based on performance or choice. It describes the basic structure of the German educational system and the specific modes of sorting at the different stages of education from early childhood education and care until … Read more
Tracking and Sorting in the French Educational System
This paper provides an overview of tracking policies in secondary education in France. Drawing on two large datasets on educational trajectories and labour-market outcomes, it identifies patterns of social inequalities associated with track allocation in secondary education. It assesses the long-term consequences of track assignment and its mediating role in the association between social origin … Read more
Tracking and sorting in the Finnish educational system
This report gives a brief overview of educational tracking and sorting in the Finnish educational system. In Finland, students are divided into different tracks relatively late even though between and within-school tracking exists at all educational levels in some forms. In this report, we present descriptive empirical analyses of long-term consequences of educational tracking by … Read more
Educational tracking and sorting in England
This report provides an overview and brief literature review of the English education system and the relevant educational reforms in relation to educational tracking and sorting. We employ the term ‘tracking’ when referring to formal educational differentiation, while ‘sorting’ refers to informal educational differentiation. The main objective is to provide a descriptive empirical analysis that … Read more
The Structure, Causes, and Consequences of Tracking in the Danish Education System
This report provides an overview over the institutional configuration of the Danish educational system and its development over time with a focus on inequalities in educational attainment. We draw on population data from Danish administrative registers and we describe the development of educational attainment including track choices and field of study specializations for individuals born … Read more
Compensatory or multiplicative advantage? Parental resources, school achievement and access to higher education in Finland
This research finds that even in Finland, enrolling in higher education depends on students’ school performance and their parents’ education. The study uses register data from Finland, where students take entrance exams for higher education and where there are both universities and polytechnics, to look at how parental resources – such as education – can … Read more