Session Information
02 SES 09 C, Pathways and Transitions II: Pathways at Risk
Paper Session
Contribution
Vocational education and training (VET) has an important contribution for social integration. Data from official statistics and surveys on school leavers' transitions to VET show that a substantial amount of young people interested in VET still could not find a training place in Germany, although the training market has improved over the past decade. Particularly, young people with migration background have significantly poorer training opportunities (dual system and school based VET sector). Young people who cannot find an apprenticeship place often end up in the transition sector of VET. This sector involves a variety of prevocational programs to enhance competences and to gain work experiences through internships in order to improve the chance to enter a full-qualifying VET program. Despite providing temporary alternatives for those unable to access full-qualifying VET programs, the transition system is often a final destinations too, particularly for low achieving youth (Solga et al. 2014, p. 15). Results from official statistics show that migrants are almost two times less likely to enter in full-qualifying VET programs and, in turn, two times more likely to enter the transition system (Autorengruppe Bildungsberichterstattung 2018). Theoretical approaches commonly used to explain disparities in VET access show that explanatory factors are complex.
Differences in the individual endowment of resources (human, social and cultural capital) are crucial for explaining disparities in the opportunities for placement into the VET system. Human capital represents relevant signals about the productivity of VET applicants to VET employers (Becker 1993), in particular, school-leaving qualifications, school grades and competences. In addition, social capital is a key resource for finding a VET position. Contacts or parents may not only provide informal recommendations to employers but also provide information on the application process and available positions (Diehl et al. 2009, Kalter 2006a, 2006b). Cultural capital such as language skills can be assumed to be related to the productivity of VET applicants (Kalter 2006a) since interactions with employers, customers and colleagues require a certain level of language skills in most VET positions.
Hence, although human, social and cultural capital factors explain a crucial part of the differences in VET access between migrants and native Germans, a gap remains unexplained. Many scholars argue that unexplained residuals are a result of discrimination by employers (Diehl et al. 2009; Hunkler 2014, 2016). According to Arrow (1973), employers may judge VET applicants by the average characteristics of the group they belong to rather than on the own personal characteristics of the applicant. Hunkler (2010) argues that discrimination may be less likely in contexts where hiring processes are more standardized and more formal. Given that full-time school-based VET programs have more standardized and more formal recruitment policies, differences between migrants and natives Germans in accessing school-based VET programs are less likely after accounting for human, social and cultural capital factors.
VET access also depends on regional opportunities. In regions with greater VET supply and lower competition, disparities among young adults with low qualification and migration background might be smaller given that employers need to fill VET positions.
Although studies on disparities in VET access of young adults with migration background account for complex explanatory factors, research often did not take into account an sector or occupation-specific view of the VET system (for example Beicht & Walden 2017; Tjaden 2017). This perspective allows taking into account the different performance requirements of occupations. Therefore, this contribution aims on answering the question, to what extent inequalities in entering the two full-qualifying VET sectors exist if educational background, competences, socio-economic factors, regional opportunities and occupational groups are controlled.
Method
For the following analyses, the starting cohort 4 (SC4, version 9.1.1) of the National Education Panel (NEPS: Blossfeld et al., 2011) is used. This dataset contains longitudinal information of 16.425 Germans toward their educational and employment histories since their first measurement in the 9th grade in autumn 2010. The data set is reduced to the 9th and 10th grade school leavers, who entered in the German VET system (dual system, full-time school-based VET sector, transition sector: n = 5.747). Consequently, only NEPS participants are considered who achieved a degree not higher than intermediate education. Binomial logistic regressions are used for the analyses. In the following models, the entry into a sector of full-qualifying VET programs (dual system or full-time school-based VET sector) and for some selected occupational groups is examined. The categorizing of occupational groups takes place according to similar domain references. However, occupational group-specific analyses are only possible in a limited manner due to small numbers of cases. Therefore, only selected occupational groups with sufficiently large case numbers are taken into account like (1.) technical, (2.) office, administrative and sales as well as (3.) health, social and educational occupations. The reference category is the entry into the transition sector. Average marginal effects (AMEs) are used for the model’s output. The AME indicates the average change (in percentage points) on the probability of the occurrences of an event (e.g., transition into the dual system) if the predictor increases by one unit. For the purpose of our analyses, different variables of the NEPS dataset are used. To identify a migration background the generation status is recoded into three categories: (1) no migration background, (2) self-immigrant, and (3) at least one parent was born abroad. For multivariate analyses, different predictors are controlled like school-leaving certificate, different personal characteristics (e.g. gender, career choices) and socioeconomic background factors (e.g. parental education, educational resources in the parents' household, parental support behaviour to enter in full-qualifying VET programs). In addition, the corrected scales of reading competence, mathematical competence, scientific literacy and ICT literacy, which were tested at the time of the 9th grade, are considered as further control variables. For ease of interpretation, the estimates of these competence scales were normalized to a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10. Missing values were estimated by multiple imputations (n = 10).
Expected Outcomes
Overall, the analyses show that migration-related disparities are subject to different interactions at the entry into occupations in the dual system and the full-time school-based VET sector. Systematic influences of a migrant background toward the entry into occupations in the full-time school-based VET sector disappear under the control of graduation, competences and gender. However, the influence of a migration background remains for occupations in the dual system. But the effect sizes decreases in control of educational resources and parental support to enter in the dual system. If training demander with a migration background do not have such resources and support factors, their training opportunities are worse in comparison to training demanders without a migration background. Above all, this should be a challenge for the integration of young refugees and asylum-seekers into VET, which immigrated to Germany in recent years. For the majority of cases of this group they can not rely on family support systems and networks.
References
Arrow, K. J. (1973). The Theory of Discrimination. Princeton. University, Industrial.Relations Section, Working. Paper No. 30A, Cambridge. Autorengruppe Bildungsberichterstattung (2018). Bildung in Deutschland 2018. Bielefeld: W. Bertelsmann. Becker, G. S. (1993). Human Capital. A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Beicht, U. & Walden, G. (2017). Generationeneffekte beim Übergang von Schulabgängern mit Migrationshintergrund in betriebliche Ausbildung. Zeitschrift für Berufs- und Wirtschaftspädagogik, 113 (3), 428–460. Blossfeld, H.-P., Roßbach, H.-G., & von Maurice, J. (Eds.) (2011). Education as a Lifelong Process – The German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft, special issue, 14. Diehl, C., Friedrich, M., & Hall, A. (2009). Jugendliche ausländischer Herkunft beim Übergang in die Berufsausbildung. Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 38 (1), 38–68. https://doi.org/10.1515/zfsoz-2009-0103 Hunkler, C. (2010). Ethnische Unterschiede beim Zugang zu Ausbildung und Erwerb von Ausbildungsabschlüssen. In B. Becker & D. Reimer (Eds.), Vom Kindergarten bis zur Hochschule (pp. 213–250). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-531-92105-1_8 Hunkler, C. (2014). Ethnische Ungleichheit beim Zugang zu Ausbildungsplätzen im dualen System. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. Hunkler, C. (2016). Ethnische Unterschiede beim Zugang zu beruflicher Ausbildung. In Ethnische Ungleichheiten im Bildungsverlauf. Mechanismen, Befunde, Debatten (pp. 597–641). Wiesbaden. Kalter, F. (2006a). Auf der Suche nach einer Erklärung für die spezifischen Arbeitsmarktnachteile von Jugendlichen türkischer Herkunft. Zugleich eine Replik auf den Beitrag von Holger Seibert und Heike Solga: „Gleiche Chancen dank einer abgeschlossenen Ausbildung?“ Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 35, 144–160. Kalter, F., (2006b). Die Suche muss immer weitergehen, die Frage ist nur „wo und wie?“ Anmerkungen zu den Kommentaren von Holger Seibert und Heike Solga. Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 35, 418–420. Solga, H., Protsch, P., Ebner, C., & Brzinsky-Fay, C. (2014). The German vocational education and training system. Berlin: WZB Berlin Social Science Center. https://bibliothek.wzb.eu/pdf/2014/i14-502.pdf Tjaden, J. D. (2017). Migrant Background and Access to Vocational Education in Germany: Self-Selection, Discrimination, or Both? Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 46(2), 107–123. https://doi.org/10.1515/zfsoz-2017-1007
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