Journal
ACTA SOCIOLOGICA
Volume 60, Issue 4, Pages 309-324Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD
DOI: 10.1177/0001699316679491
Keywords
Educational choice; educational transition; migrant; immigrant optimism; Switzerland; secondary education
Categories
Funding
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Compared to natives, students with immigrant background are - other things being equal - more likely to choose academic tracks over vocational education and training (VET) at upper-secondary level. Evidence of so-called ethnic choice effects is mostly based on education systems where vocational tracks are often regarded as unfavourable'. Our study investigated ethnic choice effects at the end of compulsory school in Switzerland, a country with a strong VET sector offering competitive incentives, particularly for students with lower or average achievement. Based on longitudinal data from the Transitions from Education to Employment' (TREE) survey, we found that most migrant groups were more likely to choose academic-track pathways preparing for university admission over VET preparing more directly for employment. Nested logistic regression analyses revealed that a large share of these ethnic choice effects was explained by immigrant optimism. Our findings shed light on general educational decision-making processes among migrant families and their potential consequences for ethnic inequality in post-compulsory education.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available