The social determinants of students’ educational aspirations demarcate a well-researched subject. One of the major theories of educational decisions, also related to aspirations, is the Relative Risk Aversion (RRA) theory (Breen & Goldthorpe 1997), which implies that students from higher social origins aspire to higher educational levels than lower-origin students with the same level of academic performance, due to status maintenance motive and risk calculation. Cross-country analyses using PISA data have connected RRA in aspirations with educational system traits (Bernardi & Valdes 2021). We analyze the role of socio-economic status and achievements in aspirations of 15-year olds upper secondary students towards tertiary education cross-time in a single country (Croatia), using PISA data from 2015 (OECD, 2017), 2018 (OECD, 2019) and 2022 (OECD, 2023, 2024). In the past decade, the enrolment share of students in upper secondary VET without direct access to tertiary education slightly decreased, with a complementary increase in enrolment in the upper secondary VET track which offers direct access to tertiary education (besides the labour market) and now comprises about half of all upper secondary education students. Students’ socio-economic status in VET without a direct tertiary pathway was consistently lowest on average. The variability of socio-economic status was consistently highest among students of VET with direct access to tertiary education, while the gap between students in VET with direct tertiary pathway and the general upper secondary students decreased from 2015 to 2018, only to increase until 2022. Achievements consistently differentiated educational tracks from VET students without direct access to tertiary education to general upper secondary students (from lowest to highest), and the gap between the VET with direct access to tertiary education and general upper secondary students also remained consistent. A large majority of general upper secondary students aspired towards tertiary education consistently, while the gap between VET students with direct access to tertiary education and general upper secondary students decreased considerably during the pandemic (from about 40 percentage points difference in 2018 to about 25 percentage points difference in 2022). Our preliminary linear probability models of tertiary education aspirations with interactions of socio-economic status and achievements suggest that RRA does not hold in the case of Croatia, with even evidence to the contrary dynamics before the pandemic (larger achievements’ gradient at higher socio-economic status). We connect these findings to the specifics of the Croatian VET system, thus contributing to the understanding of social gradients in different educational systems.

Bernardi, F., & Valdés, M. T. (2021). Sticky educational expectations: A cross-country comparison. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 75, 100624. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rssm.2021.100624 Breen, R., & Goldthorpe, J. H. (1997). EXPLAINING EDUCATIONAL DIFFERENTIALS: TOWARDS A FORMAL RATIONAL ACTION THEORY. Rationality and Society, 9(3), 275–305. https://doi.org/10.1177/104346397009003002 OECD (2017), PISA 2015 Technical Report, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/about/programmes/edu/pisa/publications/technical-report/PISA2015_TechRep_Final.pdf OECD (2019), PISA 2018 Assessment and Analytical Framework, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/b25efab8-en OECD (2023). PISA 2022 Assessment and Analytical Framework. OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2023/08/pisa-2022-assessment-and-analytical-framework_a124aec8/dfe0bf9c-en.pdf OECD (2024), PISA 2022 Technical Report, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/01820d6d-en