Inequalities in educational decisions by migration background - the role of of information availability

• Applicant: Dr. Thomas Zimmermann
• Subject Area: Education Systems and Educational Institutions ; Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2021 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 466545057

The project investigates the role of information availability for the decision-making behaviour of parents with and without a migration background at the transition from primary to secondary school in Germany. While numerous studies show more favourable educational decisions of parents with a migration background when controlling for school performance and social origin, the reasons for this have not yet been comprehensively understood. The aim of the project is to offer more comprehensive insights into the explanatory mechanisms of individual, decision-relevant aspects of information availability as well as the educational decisions of parents with an immigrant background by combining the assumptions of several theoretical models to decision making in an integrative approach through the availability of information.The research questions are: What are the differences in parents' information availability according to their migration background, and how can they be explained? Through which mechanisms does information availability influence educational decisions? Do social influence mechanisms gain importance with decreasing informedness and thus make an additional contribution to explaining the educational decisions of parents with an immigrant background? To answer these research questions, this project examines differences in information availability and educational decisions between immigrant and nonimmigrant parents and explores explanations for these differences.The data basis is Starting Cohort 2 of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). With these data, for one thing, it is possible to investigate whether differences in the availability of information of parents with and without a migration background can be explained by a different endowment of families with social and cultural resources. For another, the data can be used to examine the mechanisms through which parents' information availability influences their educational decisions. On the one hand, distorted information about school performance and transition criteria, length of schooling, or the importance of individual degrees for the labour market can influence parents' subjective perceptions and thus their evaluation of individual alternatives. On the other hand, a lack of information increases the decision's uncertainty and thus, the orientation towards cues from the social environment for a "correct" decision. As a result, social influences gain importance in the decision-making process.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants