"Anything your child can do, my child can do better!"

Periodical
Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft
Volume
20
Year
2017
Issue number
4
Page range
711-727
Relates to study/studies
PIRLS 2011
TIMSS 2011
Relates to study/studies

 

 

"Anything your child can do, my child can do better!"

Effects of the social composition of school classes on the transition to secondary school

Abstract

The negative effect of achievement-related class composition on the recommendation and choice of school track has been thoroughly examined and theoretically founded. This is not the case for the interestingly positive effect of socioeconomic class composition. This study investigates this effect on the choice of school track. We hypothesized that a favorable socioeconomic class composition, associated with collectively high educational aspirations among the parents within the class leads to higher expectations of a child’s chances of success in an academic track (Gymnasium). We hypothesized that this favorable socioeconomic class composition would increase the probability of students resp. parents choosing the academic track. The analyses were based on the German TIMSS-PIRLS 2011 data and consisted of path-analytic two-level models. The results confirm a positive effect of the mean socioeconomic status on the choice of school track. This effect is partly mediated by the expectations of success. However, the effect is rather small.