Abstract
This article examines to what extent the specific institutional arrangement of an education system moderates the influence of social background on students’ track allocation, and whether this happens via primary or secondary effects of social origin. I tackle the problem of omitted-variable bias by analyzing subnational education systems in Switzerland, a country with a variety of cantonal school systems but otherwise homogeneous institutions. The results show a complex picture. First, even though the absolute transition probability to the highest track is higher in education systems with low stratification for students of higher social background, this does not translate into a relative advantage as in most cantons the odds of transitioning do not differ between high and low social background students. Second, in line with previous research, I observe that the secondary effect of social origin prevails in more stratified education systems. Third, it is not possible to conclude with certainty that specific features of the education system enable high social background parents to disproportionately influence their children’s transition probabilities because the results are not robust.
Zusammenfassung
Dieser Artikel untersucht inwiefern die institutionelle Ausgestaltung des Bildungssystems den Einfluss der sozialen Schicht auf die Übertrittschancen in den leistungsstärksten Schultrack moderiert und wieweit dies über den primären oder den sekundären Herkunftseffekt geschieht. Das Problem des omitted variable bias bei Ländervergleichen wird mittels eines Vergleichs von subnationalen Bildungssystemen entschärft. Die Schweiz ist dafür besonders geeignet aufgrund einer großen Varietät von Bildungssystemen bei gleichzeitig ähnlichen sozialstaatlichen Institutionen. Die Resultate zeichnen ein komplexes Bild: Obwohl erstens die absolute Übertrittswahrscheinlichkeit für Kinder aus höherer Schicht in weniger stratifizierten Bildungssystemen grösser ist, führt dies nicht zwingend zu einem relativen Vorteil, da sich die Übertrittschancen zwischen den Schichten nicht signifikant unterscheiden. Zweitens lässt sich der Befund aus früherer Forschung, dass in stärker stratifizierten Bildungssystemen der sekundäre Herkunftseffekt größer ist, replizieren. Drittens ist es nicht möglich festzustellen, ob gewisse Institutionen im Bildungssystem für Kinder aus höherer Schicht vorteilhaft sind, da die Resultate nicht robust sind.
Article note
The research data are stored in the GESIS data archive under the following signature: https://dx.doi.org/10.7802/1921
About the author
Benita Combet is a SNF fellowship holder and works at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. Her research focuses on identifying the mechanisms explaining educational inequality and gender inequality in the labour market and has been published in the European Sociological Review and the Swiss Journal of Sociology.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Joël Berger, Martina Jakob, Ben Jann, Fabian Kratz, Hannes Kröger, Thomas Meyer, Simon Seiler and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful inputs.
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