Family background, competence development, and selective decisions within the tiered school system compared internationally - An extensive analysis of PISA data

Abstract

Social disparities in educational careers are the result of a combination of primary and secondary background effects on social selectivity of access to institutions of secondary and higher education. The article focuses on an international comparative study of social selection regarding enrollment at secondary schools. Secondary disparities are analyzed in four different countries with tiered secondary school systems (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the Flemish part of Belgium). Social background is examined in detail and the relative importance of structural and process-related characteristics is studied. These analyses point to a difference in enrollment quota at higher educational institutions. In all countries, both primary and secondary social disparities could be revealed. Despite overall comparable patterns in the results concerning the effects of social background characteristics in all four countries examined, differential effects of family-related structural characteristics and process features could be detected.