Caught by Surprise: The Adaptation of Parental Expectations after Unexpected Ability Track Placement

The study examines the adaptation of educational expectations. It focuses on the expectations that parents have of their children during the transition from primary to secondary school in Germany. During this transition, students are placed into different ability tracks. It is examined whether parents react to this information about their child's achievement by adjusting their educational expectations or whether their expectations are nonreactive to the achievement information conveyed by track placement. It is hypothesized that parents are more likely to adapt their expectations regarding final educational attainment if their child's track placement is not consistent with the expectations that they held before the track placement was known. Furthermore, SES differences in this adjustment process are expected as parents of different social status have different orientations towards achievement information.The study uses data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), Starting Cohort~2 and focuses on the years between the third grade of primary school and fifth grade, which is the first year of secondary school. This means that students and parents can be followed across the moment in the academic career at which track placement happens. Furthermore, the variations in the tracking decisions across the German federal states is used to examine how the adaptation of parents' expectations is affected based on how much influence parents have on track placement. Two-way fixed effect models are employed to model the change of expectations between the two time points in the data. The results show that low-SES parents do adjust their expectations more strongly downward when their children receive a lower track placement than expected; however, high-SES parents maintain their high expectations even in light of such negative achievement information. High- and low-SES parents do not significantly differ in their expectation adjustment if their children's track placement is higher than their previous expectations.

Tracking in Israeli high schools: social inequality after 50 years of educational reforms

This paper provides an overview of tracking in Israeli upper secondary education and assesses its effect on the attainment of higher education degrees and earnings. Since the early 1970’s, the Israeli education system has gone through three major reforms that profoundly transformed tracking and sorting mechanisms in secondary education. All three aimed at reducing social inequality in educational attainment through structural changes that expanded learning opportunities and replaced rigid top-down sorting mechanisms with concepts of differentiation and choice. Utilising a data set that includes a large representative sample of Israelis born between 1978 and 1981 who were fully affected by the reforms, the analysis shows that there is a clear link between social background and track placement. Track placement, in turn, is associated with attainment of higher education degrees and income. Moreover, tracking mediates a large proportion of the association between parental class and these two adult outcomes. We also show that the low-status academic tracks that replaced the vocational tracks did not improve the life chances of low-achieving students from disadvantaged social groups.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>We analyze the relation between social background, secondary education tracking and later life achievements using registry data.</li><br /><li>The results show that tracking mediates a large proportion of the association between background and outcomes High-tier vocational tracks improved the chances of students.</li><br /><li>Low-status academic tracks did not improve the life chances of low background students.</li></ul>

Upper secondary school tracking, labour market outcomes and intergenerational inequality in Denmark

We study the relationship among family background, placements in upper secondary school tracks and labour market outcomes in the comprehensive welfare state of Denmark. We base our study on high-quality data from Danish administrative registers with a focus on the 1986 birth cohort, which allows us to examine very fine-grained measures of track placement in upper secondary schools. Our analyses show three results. First, upper secondary track placement is consequential for labour market outcomes, even after we control for the selection into tracks on pre-track academic performance and family background characteristics. Second, upper secondary track placement appears to affect labour market outcomes even net of higher education attainment. Third, educational tracking appears to play a role in intergenerational social reproduction net of family background-based skill gaps, suggesting that track choice help maintain inequalities across generations. We discuss the implications of our findings for the literature on educational tracking.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>Upper secondary school tracking is relevant for labor market outcomes in Denmark.</li><br /><li>Even after we control for pre-tracking academic performance and family SES tracking effects persist.</li><br /><li>Track placement seems to affect labor market outcomes net of higher education attainment.</li><br /><li>Educational tracking appears to play a role in intergenerational social reproduction net of family background-based skill gaps.</li></ul>

Track and Sector in Egyptian Higher Education: Who Studies Where and Why?

Following the 1952 revolution, the Egyptian higher education system grew rapidly, with post-secondary institutes complementing the expanding university system. Private post-secondary institutes were permitted from 1970; in the early 1990s financial constraints and pressures for cost recovery prompted legislation allowing private universities. In the face of expansion, diversification, and partial privatization, concerns have arisen about equity in higher education opportunities. The 2014 Survey of Young People in Egypt is used to examine correlates of higher education track placement and of sector placement within tracks.

Navigating Institutions: Parents’ Knowledge of the Educational System and Students’ Success in Education

This study investigates whether families navigate educational institutions more successfully if they have a higher knowledge of the pathways in the educational system that are available to their children. We also study whether this kind of knowledge mediates secondary effects of social origin, i.e. differences in educational pathways once achievement differences between children are accounted for. The role of parents’ knowledge is consistent with various sociological theories concerning educational inequality. Knowledge can affect families’ ability to make rational choices for education but it can also be understood as a form of cultural capital. We use longitudinal student cohort data from the Netherlands combined with individual-level register data on educational attainment to study the importance of knowledge for short-term outcomes (up- and downward transitions in secondary education as well as track placement) and final educational attainment. Our results show that parents’ knowledge is a significant predictor of educational success net of parents’ education, socio-demographic characteristics, and demonstrated ability. If we apply a stricter test to the measure, however, we can see that knowledge matters for downward transitions and obtaining a tertiary degree but that the effect is negligible for upward transitions and track placement if other mechanisms such as cultural capital and aspirations are considered. Further, we conclude that knowledge matters especially for transitions in the educational system that require a move to a new and unknown school environment such as post-secondary or tertiary education. The study shows that knowledge is one useful avenue to investigate when we are confronted with the question why social disparities in educational decision-making arise.

Unmet Goals of Tracking: Within-track Heterogeneity of Students’ Expectations about the Future

Over the last two decades, researchers in the educational field have raised concerns regarding the high educational expectations among American youth. Studies have identified the detracking movement as one of the most important causes of this college-for-all norm. The assumption is that tracked secondary education systems, in contrast to comprehensive systems, lead to realistic expectations because of students’ clear track placement. In other words, tracking creates groups of students with homogeneous expectations. Inspired by the rich literature on the unequal selection present in tracked systems, this article questions this assumption concerning students’ allocation. We examine homogeneity of expectations in a rigidly tracked system, using data from 2,354 students in 28 schools (2013–2014) in Ghent (Belgium). Results from ordinary least squares (OLS) regression show that even in a stringently tracked system, the vocational track has the lowest homogeneity of expectations. We discuss the unmet goals of tracking in view of tracking policy.