Social origin

Diversion or inclusion? Alternative routes to higher education eligibility and inequality in educational attainment in Germany

Authors: Steffen Schindler, Felix Bittmann,
Issue: 2022
Themes: ,

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 … Read more

Analysing Diversion Processes in German Secondary Education: School-Track Effects on Educational Aspirations

Authors: Felix Bittmann, Steffen Schindler,
Issue: 2022
Themes: ,

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 … Read more

Relative risk aversion models: How plausible are their assumptions?

This work examines the validity of the two main assumptions of relative risk-aversion models of educational inequality. We compare the Breen-Goldthorpe (BG) and the Breen-Yaish (BY) models in terms of … Read more

COVID-19 and educational inequality: How school closures affect low- and high-achieving students

In spring 2020, governments around the globe shut down schools to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus. We argue that low-achieving students may be particularly affected by the lack … Read more

Children’s socio-emotional skills: Is there a quantity–quality trade-off?

Although it is widely acknowledged that non-cognitive skills matter for adult outcomes, little is known about the role played by family environment in the formation of these skills. We use … Read more

Robust cross-country analysis of inequality of opportunity

International rankings of countries based on inequality of opportunity indices may not be robust vis-à-vis the specific metric adopted to measure opportunities. Indices often aggregate relevant information and neglect to control for … Read more

Just a phase? Mapping the transition of behavioural problems from childhood to adolescence

Purpose Young people change substantially between childhood and adolescence. Yet, the current description of behavioural problems does not incorporate any reference to the developmental context. In the current analysis, we … Read more

Is improving access to university enough? Socio-economic gaps in the earnings of English graduates

Much research and policy attention has been on socio-economic gaps in participation at university, but less attention has been paid to socio-economic gaps in graduates’ earnings. This paper addresses this … Read more

The role of local labour market conditions and pupil attainment on post-compulsory schooling decisions

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the role of local labour market conditions and pupil educational attainment as primary determinants of the post-compulsory schooling decision. Design/methodology/approach … Read more