Session Information
99 ERC SES 04 D, Interactive Poster Session
Poster Session
Contribution
This paper presents empirical insights into the mechanisms that drive inequalities in young people’s educational trajectories in Austria. My research interest focuses on the transition patterns of immigrant youth (first and second generation) into and through upper secondary education. The empirical analysis is based on longitudinal register data covering a full cohort of students in the Austrian education system. These data allow for a fine-grained analysis of differences within the heterogeneous group of immigrant youth while paying attention to the context in which educational transitions are made. The following research questions are addressed: First, I explore how immigrant youth’s pathways into and through upper secondary educational tracks differ from those of their native peers, between girls and boys, and by country of origin. Second, I investigate the extent to which individual, school-level, and regional context variables can explain these differences in transition patterns.
Austria is an example of a highly stratified education system where students are tracked into different educational pathways at a young age. Adolescents who reach the end of lower secondary education (typically at the age of fourteen) may either pursue general education or enter upper secondary vocational education and training (VET). Moreover, the VET sector comprises different options of fully school-based versus dual (apprenticeship) options leading to different levels of qualifications. In this context, moving from lower into upper secondary education marks a decisive transition for young people’s educational outcomes and future employment prospects. The high level of differentiation as well as the important role of VET make the Austrian education system a particularly interesting case for analysis.
Conceptually, I rely on sociological theories of inequality in education and (immigrant) youth’s educational choices. Building on Boudon’s (1974) well-established distinction between primary and secondary effects of social origin, immigrant youth are assumed to attain lower average educational achievements than their native peers due to a lower socioeconomic status (SES) and additional barriers such as language skills (Diehl et al. 2016). At the same time, an immigrant background has been consistently associated with comparatively high educational aspirations (Kao & Tienda 1995; Rudolphi & Salikutluk 2021) manifested in ambitious educational choices (Dollmann 2021). Beyond the individual level, contextual factors such as school composition (Perry 2012) and regional opportunity structures (Becker et al. 2020) are also considered important determinants of young people’s educational opportunities and attainments.
Based on a full cohort of students and the comprehensive information provided through administrative data, my analyses contribute to the existing literature in several ways. For the transition into upper secondary education, previous studies consistently show that young immigrants are overall more likely to enter academic tracks and less likely to enter VET than their native peers, once prior achievements are accounted for (Glauser & Becker 2023; Jonsson & Rudolphi 2011; Tjaden & Hunkler 2017). However, the extent to which so-called ‘ethnic choice effects’ differ along dimensions such as gender, country of origin, or SES has not been conclusively explored. Furthermore, there is a gap in understanding how and why immigrant youth’s transition patterns vary depending on the context in which decisions to pursue different educational options are made. Finally, recent evidence suggests that immigrant youth’s ambitious choices do not necessarily translate into favourable outcomes, but are also accompanied by higher dropout rates at the upper secondary level (Birkelund 2020; Dollmann et al. 2023; Ferrara 2023). Covering a period of seven years, the analytical strategy applied in this paper gathers new empirical evidence on how immigrant youth’s educational pathways develop beyond the point of entry into upper secondary education.
Method
The empirical basis for analysis is a longitudinal dataset that integrates information from various administrative registers. These data cover the educational and labour market trajectories of a full cohort of students in the Austrian education system for a period of 13 years. I study the cohort of young people who were 13 years old (typically in the final year of their lower secondary education) at the beginning of the school year 2013/14. This includes a total of 88.000 students, of which more than 20.000 have an immigrant background (9% first-generation and 13,7% second-generation immigrants). The dataset is ideal for the purpose of this study due to its large number of cases as well as the extensive and reliable information provided on young people’s backgrounds and trajectories. Sequence analysis and subsequent multilevel regression analyses are applied to answer the previously outlined research questions. In a first step, pathways into and through upper secondary education are mapped using sequence analysis (SA) (Raab & Struffolino 2023). This analysis is conducted for the full cohort based on annual information on individual educational status (i.e., the type of school attended) or labour market status (i.e., leaving the school system into the labour market, or dropout). The SA covers a period of seven years, starting with students’ final year of lower secondary education (typically the eighth school year, concluded at age 14). An optimal matching method (Biemann 2011) is employed to cluster educational pathways according to their similarity. The result of the SA is a typology of pathways. Corresponding to the first research question (RQ), the frequency of occurrence of these pathways is compared across different groups, defined by their gender (boys/girls), immigrant status (immigrant/native), and country of origin. Addressing the second RQ, the resulting clusters are used as categorical input for multinomial logistic regression analysis. I use a multilevel regression model to test the effects of and interactions between factors at three different levels, namely the individual, the school, and students’ home district. The variables of interest include students’ gender, immigrant status, migrant generation, country of origin, and family background (SES) at the individual level, and the aggregated composition according to students’ SES and immigrant background at school level. Regional opportunity structures in students’ home districts are operationalised based on various factors such as the degree of urbanisation, labour market conditions, and school infrastructure.
Expected Outcomes
Preliminary results of the sequence analysis indicate that what constitutes a typical pathway into and through upper secondary education varies not only between young people with and without an immigrant background, but also within the heterogeneous group of immigrant youth. This supports the assumption that the mechanisms postulated to explain immigrant youth’s comparatively high educational aspirations – including a so-called ‘immigrant optimism’, information deficits and an anticipation of future discrimination on the labour market – do not apply equally for all minority groups. Instead, transition patterns – e.g., the likelihood of pursuing vocational or general education, the stability or instability of educational pathways, and risks of dropout – vary along dimensions such as immigrants’ families’ countries of origin, migrant generation, and gender. By revealing how young people’s educational trajectories develop beyond the point of entry into upper secondary education, the SA yields new empirical insights concerning the implications that immigrant youth’s comparatively ambitious choices may have for their future educational outcomes. The complex interplay of individual, school, and regional level variables underlying differences in (immigrant) youth’s transition patterns is investigated in detail in the multilevel regression analysis. I expect school composition variables such as the share of students with an immigrant background or low SES to show significant effects in the regression analysis. Furthermore, I expect that measures of regional opportunity structures (e.g., labour market conditions and school infrastructure) constitute significant factors to explain group-specific differences in educational pathways. Ultimately, the results of this analysis will contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms that drive inequalities in education. By shifting the focus from individual characteristics to structural factors at school and regional (district) level, these findings are also relevant to policy making targeted at promoting equal opportunities in education.
References
Becker R, Glauser D, Möser S. 2020. Determinants of Educational Choice and Vocational Training Opportunities in Switzerland. Empirical Analyses with Longitudinal Data from the DAB Panel Study. In Against the Odds - (In)Equity in Education and Educational Systems, eds. N McElvany, HG Holtappels, F Lauermann, A Edele, A Ohle-Peters, pp. 125–43 Biemann T. 2011. A Transition-Oriented Approach to Optimal Matching. Sociological Methodology. 41:195–221 Birkelund JF. 2020. Aiming High and Missing the Mark? Educational Choice, Dropout Risk, and Achievement in Upper Secondary Education among Children of Immigrants in Denmark. European Sociological Review. 36(3):395–412 Boudon R. 1974. Education, Opportunity, and Social Inequality: Changing Prospects in Western Society. New York: Wiley Diehl C, Hunkler C, Kristen C. 2016. Ethnische Ungleichheiten im Bildungsverlauf. Eine Einführung. In Ethnische Ungleichheiten Im Bildungsverlauf: Mechanismen, Befunde, Debatten, eds. C Diehl, C Hunkler, C Kristen, pp. 3–31. Wiesbaden: Springer VS Dollmann J. 2021. Ethnic inequality in choice‐ and performance‐driven education systems: A longitudinal study of educational choices in England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. The British Journal of Sociology. 72(4):974–91 Dollmann J, Jonsson JO, Mood C, Rudolphi F. 2023. Is ‘immigrant optimism’ in educational choice a problem? Ethnic gaps in Swedish upper secondary school completion. European Sociological Review. 39(3):384–99 Ferrara A. 2023. Aiming too high or scoring too low? Heterogeneous immigrant–native gaps in upper secondary enrolment and outcomes beyond the transition in France. European Sociological Review. 39(3):366–83 Glauser D, Becker R. 2023. Gendered ethnic choice effects at the transition to upper secondary education in Switzerland. Frontiers in Sociology. 8:1–12 Jonsson JO, Rudolphi F. 2011. Weak Performance--Strong Determination: School Achievement and Educational Choice among Children of Immigrants in Sweden. European Sociological Review. 27(4):487–508 Kao G, Tienda M. 1995. Optimism and Achievement: The Educational Performance of Immigrant Youth. Social Science Quarterly. 76(1):1–19 Perry LB. 2012. Causes and Effects of School Socio-Economic Composition? A Review of the Literature. Education and Society. 30(1):19–35 Raab M, Struffolino E. 2023. Sequence Analysis. Los Angeles: SAGE Rudolphi F, Salikutluk Z. 2021. Aiming High, No Matter What? Educational Aspirations of Ethnic Minority and Ethnic Majority Youth in England, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. Comparative Sociology. 20(1):70–100 Tjaden JD, Hunkler C. 2017. The optimism trap: Migrants’ educational choices in stratified education systems. Social Science Research. 67:213–28
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