Strategic knowledge and migrant-specific inequalities in educational attainment in Germany
Empirical Social Research
Final Report Abstract
For pupils from immigrant families, it has been repeatedly observed that they make more ambitious educational decisions than children from the majority society, given the same performance and social background. One possible explanation for this inequality is the knowledge about the education system, which can be an important resource in the education process. Since immigrant families are evidently less well informed about the education system, these differences in informativeness could reinforce migration-specific inequalities in the transition from primary to lower secondary school. The project therefore investigated the relevance of knowledge about the education system in explaining migration-specific educational inequalities at the first transition to lower secondary school. Thus, an explanatory factor was examined that is often referred to as a possible cause for existing educational inequalities, but for which a comprehensive examination in the German context has been lacking so far. In order to answer the question, data from the National Education Panel's Start Cohort 2 was analysed. This cohort consists of children whose parents were interviewed annually during their primary school years and who continued to be followed after the transition to lower secondary school. When the children entered the third grade, the study assessed parental knowledge both specific to the transition and to the wider education system and opportunities there. The assumption was that a lack of knowledge in particular is responsible for the ambitious educational decisions of immigrant families. This assumption was not confirmed: migration-specific differences in attending a Gymnasium remained unchanged. At the same time, it could be shown that attending a Gymnasium was all the more likely if alternatives, the duration for obtaining the Abitur and the prerequisite for attending a Gymnasium were known. These aspects of knowledge proved to be relevant for attending a Gymnasium regardless of the degree of bindingness of the track recommendation in the federal state. Overall, the results showed that migration-specific, but also social knowledge differences exist and that at least some of the knowledge aspects considered in the study are significant for the attended school type in lower secondary education. This finding supports efforts to reduce knowledge differences.
Publications
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Explaining social inequalities at the transition from primary to secondary education: the interplay of knowledge and institutional setting. Präsentation auf der In_equality Conference 2022, Konstanz.
Olczyk, Melanie; Maximilian Bach; Annabell Daniel & Katharina Werner
