Social inequalities in educational choice at the transition from primary to secondary education have been a recurring research topic in European sociology of education, as choice is a crucial determinant of educational attainment in most European countries (Erikson and Jonsson, 1996). In those countries, parents along with their children have to choose between mutually exclusive tracks at a fairly young age. This way, these educational systems allow for self-selection to take place. Studies in various European countries do indeed show that parents from low SES backgrounds do less often opt for the more demanding educational options in secondary education compared to their high SES counterparts, even if their children achieve as well as those of their high SES counterparts (e.g. Ditton and Krüsken, 2006, for Germany; Kloosterman et al., 2009, for the Netherlands; Duru-Bellat, 2002, for France; Jaeger, 2009, for Denmark). Most of these studies seek to explain these differentials in educational choice by referring to the differing amounts of resources pupils’ families possess. By doing so, these research endeavours implicitly assume that the decision made at the transition from primary to secondary education occurs solely in the family. However, it is within the context of the primary school that parents along with their children decide which educational alternative to choose. Research connecting characteristics of (primary) schools to individual educational decisions is scarce (e.g. Dryler, 1999; Jonsson & Mood, 2008; Kauppinen, 2008). We aim to add to the knowledge on social inequality in educational decision-making by investigating the potential influence of the socio-economic status (SES) composition of the primary school’s student body on the educational choices made by pupils. There are good reasons to expect that the SES composition of a school affects educational choice. First of all, it is a well-established fact that the composition of the pupil body determines to a large extent what teachers expect from their pupils (Finn, 1976). If teachers expect less in schools where the mean SES of the pupil body is low, it could well be that parents are less ambitious when making an educational choice. Furthermore, the SES composition of a school can also be connected to the amount of cultural and social capital present in a school (Goddard, 2003). We could expect that in schools with high amounts of cultural and social capital, parents make more informed choices than do parents in schools with low amounts of cultural and social capital. In addition, we also aim to determine whether the SES composition of the pupil body interacts with individual SES of pupils. The research questions are thus: 1) does SES composition of the pupil body affect educational choice, over and above the individual characteristics of pupils? 2) if so, can this effect be explained by a) the expectations teachers have about the pupils in their schools; b) the amount of social and cultural capital present in the school? 3) does SES composition interact with individual SES?

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