Investigating educational inequalities and reveal their underlying origins is crucial, because educational inequalities can be responsible for social inequalities. Comparative studies like PISA show that the extent of educational inequalities varies significantly across countries. Schlicht et al. (2010) use the PISA data from 2006 to show that inequality is unlike distributed in Europe. Furthermore, they conclude that various mechanisms for that inequality interfere with each other.

One important factor that can reinforce or even create educational inequalities is parental school choice. However, especially the choice of private schools seems to be of vital importance in modeling inequalities. More opportunities for school choice and the rise of private schools follow an increasing marketization on the educational level characterized by more competition between schools, a growing number of school profiles, and more choice options for parents (Heinrich et al. 2011). Factors such as sponsorship of the school (private/state) shape attitudes and tend to reinforce educational inequalities through school choice (Parade & Heinzel 2020).

A central role within the school choice process is played by parents, who make decisions for or against a school, based on the information available to them. Schwarz et al. (2017) show that parents primarily rely on recommendations from acquaintances, information from school homepages, and school visits when choosing an elementary school. In addition, other information and experiences shape parental school choice decisions, such as their own school biographies (Mayer 2019) or images about the school system disseminated by the mass media (Fields 2006).

However, it remains still unclear what conclusions parents draw from this information and what attitudes parents have or what perceptions they have about state and private schools. In many countries, the private school rate is increasing (West & Nikolai 2016), which indicates a particularly positive perception and also a demand of private schools in general. But there are no findings so far on how much and what exactly is valued so positively about private schools by the parents. Moreover, it is not clear to what extent these parental assessments correspond to the reliable findings and whether parents judge their school choice decision on valid information at all. According to the market logic of school choice, detailed and valid information should be available to all stakeholders if the positive effects of school competition are to be achieved, e. g. high academic performance (Bellmann 2008, Le Grand & Barlett 1993). So far, it can rather be assumed that objective or factual sources of information are not used, because sources such as official statistics or information from school boards are rarely consulted (Schwarz et al. 2017). Instead, parents ground their decision primarily on personal recommendations (Lareau 2014).

Due to the fact that specific factors for the different country-related regulations and mechanisms are hard to compare, this article highlights one aspect of the generation of educational inequalities (school choice and especially parental assumptions about private schools) and discusses it on the example of one specific country (Germany). Using the example of only one country and its specific conditions that apply, we will show what kind of assumptions and prejudices parents have on the choice of private (vs state) schools and how these phenomena correspond to evidence from research and statistics.

If we look at Germany in an EU-wide comparison, the correlation between social background and educational success is relatively high (OECD 2018). It is therefore appropriate to take a closer look at this country in relation to the factors influencing social inequality. Since this article is primarily intended to take a look at the private school system, it is relevant to briefly describe the most important aspects here: In Germany, in the school year 2020/21 about 9.3% of all pupils attend a private school (Destatis 2021). This puts Germany in line with the OECD average (Koinzer et al 2017). But unlike in many other countries, private schools in Germany are guaranteed by the law and supervised by the state. For this reason, and also in order to provide access to this education sector for everyone, the state also finances private schools to a large extent, which means that school fees are quite low in international comparison (Nikolai & Koinzer, 2017). Nevertheless, studies show that private school attendance in Germany is strongly dependent on the social background of families (Görlitz et al. 2018; Helbig et al. 2017). To answer the research questions, data from the CHOICE project are used, in which parents (N=1296) were asked about their school choice decision in the context of their child's enrollment in school. Among other questions, parents were asked the open-ended question, "what is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of state schools?" or the same question analogously for private schools. Parents' open-ended responses (multiple responses possible, N=2488 for state schools or N=2552 for private schools) were then categorized both in terms of their valuation (positive/negative/neutral) and their content. The coding of the open responses was done independently by two researchers for the entire data material. Subsequently, all ambiguous codings were discussed in a coding conference and assigned to a category. The final category system consists of nine main with several sub categories. The data is then analysed descriptively to see how parents’ value private and state schools. In addition, the parental associations are ranked on the basis of the category system. The most frequent mentions are then compared with official data and research results.

First descriptive results show that negative associations are mentioned significantly more often for state schools than private ones (70.6% vs. 29.4%). At the same time, significantly more positive evaluations are directed towards private schools (82.8% vs. 17.2%). In terms of the content analysis parents associate high tuition fees (N=298), small class sizes (N=298), and good individual care (N=195) with private schools. In comparison, parents most frequently link state schools with large classes (N=238), poor building condition (N=93), and poor teacher-to-student ratios (N=188). In the next step, these and other parental statements are compared with data from official statistics and the corresponding scientific research. Using the example of "small classes at private schools" it can be shown with data from official statistics (Destatis 2021) that class sizes at private schools are indeed lower than at state schools. Even if the parental perception is correct, it can be assumed that parents clearly overestimate the differences in class size because the difference is just one. With a difference of only one pupil, the variance between any schools or even class is greater than between private and state schools. Finally, we discuss what it means if parental perception subsequently influences choice decisions and further reinforces inequalities. We want to determine what effects can be achieved by exposing private school myths. In conclusion, we will discuss the question of how parental school choice processes and decisions should be framed by researchers and education administrators. At the end we want to debate (also with the audience) how the situation is in other countries and to what extent the results from Germany are transferable: Are the local findings also global ones and is the internationally noticeable increase in private schools in other countries also (partly) due to parental misperceptions?

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