家庭对流动儿童择校的影响研究

通过对"2010年北京市儿童发展状况调查"数据的分析,把流动儿童就读的学校划分为三种类型,即打工子弟学校、流动儿童多的公立学校和流动儿童少的公立学校,这三类学校接收的流动儿童大体上对应于不同的流动人口阶层,依此为参照,分布在不同类型学校中的流动人口家庭的社会经济水平、社会网络质量、独生子女比例、家庭教育期望和条件等呈现出逐级递增的趋势。在流动儿童少的公立学校中,无论学习成绩还是家庭状况,流动儿童和户籍儿童均无显著差异。     

When studying schooling is not enough: Incorporating employment in models of educational transitions

Several recent studies have demonstrated the importance of incorporating qualitative differentiation within educational systems in the study of class inequality in student transitions. We extend these endeavors by broadening the definition of differentiation to include participation in the labor market. As increasing proportions of students continue their educational journeys beyond compulsory schooling, they are considering not only whether to stay in school but also whether to simultaneously enter the world of work. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth of 1997 (NLSY97), we show that family background influences not only whether students make specific educational transitions but also whether they combine those educational transitions with work. Student trajectories are also path dependent, with employment during one educational transition being related to specific transition patterns at a later point in time. Considering how students combine school and work reveals another dimension of differentiation which can be exploited by socioeconomically advantaged families to “effectively maintain” inequality in educational outcomes.     

Ivies, extracurriculars, and exclusion: Elite employers’ use of educational credentials

Although a robust literature has demonstrated a positive relationship between education and socio-economic attainment, the processes through which formal schooling yields enhanced economic and social rewards remain less clear. Employers play a crucial role in explaining the returns to formal schooling yet little is known about how employers, particularly elite employers, use and interpret educational credentials. In this article, I analyze how elite professional service employers use and interpret educational credentials in real-life hiring decisions. I find that educational credentials were the most common criteria employers used to solicit and screen resumes. However, it was not the content of education that elite employers valued but rather its prestige. Contrary to common sociological measures of institutional prestige, employers privileged candidates who possessed a super-elite (e.g., top four) rather than selective university affiliation. They restricted competition to students with elite affiliations and attributed superior abilities to candidates who had been admitted to super-elite institutions, regardless of their actual performance once there. However, a super-elite university affiliation was insufficient on its own. Importing the logic of university admissions, firms performed a strong secondary screen on candidates’ extracurricular accomplishments, favoring high status, resource-intensive activities that resonated with white, upper-middle class culture. I discuss these findings in terms of the changing nature of educational credentialism to suggest that (a) extracurricular activities have become credentials of social and moral character that have monetary conversion value in labor markets and (b) the way employers use and interpret educational credentials contributes to a social closure of elite jobs based on socio-economic status.     

Exploring Differences in Financial Literacy Across Countries: The Role of Individual Characteristics and Institutions

We explore microdata from the OECD/INFE survey on financial literacy of adult individuals. We find considerable differences in financial literacy across countries and decompose them into a part explainable by varying individual characteristics and a remainder. We show that individual characteristics matter with regard to differences in average financial literacy, but do not fully explain the gaps. We decompose financial literacy across its distribution and directly relate it to different policies. We then correlate the unexplained differences to institutional macroeconomic variables. We find strong correlations between unexplained differences and life expectancy, social contributions rate, PISA math scores, and internet usage, suggesting room for harmonization of environments across countries to close the financial literacy gap.

     

Migration background and educational tracking

Research on immigrants’ educational disadvantages documents substantial immigrant–native achievement gaps in standardized student assessments. Exploiting data from the German PIRLS extension, we find that second-generation immigrants also receive worse grades and teacher recommendations for secondary school tracks than natives, which cannot be explained by differences in student achievement tests and general intelligence. Second-generation immigrants’ less favorable socioeconomic background largely accounts for this additional disadvantage, suggesting that immigrants are disproportionately affected by prevailing social inequalities at the transition to secondary school. We additionally show that differences in track attendance account for a substantial part of the immigrant–native wage gap in Germany.     

Family and school capital explaining regional variation in math and reading achievement

We know that inequality varies by region and also begins early in life. Bivariate data suggest that 5–14-year-old children in the 1994 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) score differently in reading and mathematics achievement depending on their region, with children in the South and West scoring lower. We combine literatures on regional bases of inequality and family and school capital to generate hypotheses explaining these differences. Analyses of covariance provide supportive evidence. For both outcomes among boys, the variation is explained by additive models including family and child social and human capital, although selected aspects of school capital are also influential; these models also explain math achievement among girls. A model including both additive and interactive effects explains regional differences in reading achievement for girls. We interpret these findings in terms of their implications for studying inequality in child achievement as well as for emphasizing the importance of regional inequality, particularly beyond the South versus non-South distinction.     

Stratification and the formation of expectations in highly differentiated educational systems

Highly differentiated educational systems constitute a common organizational form of schooling in which youth are sorted into secondary schools that stress either vocational or academic training and between which movement is rare. With standardized data from five countries, we illuminate two important stratification processes in these systems: (1) social origins strongly influence students’ placement into different types of schools with high SES students most likely to attend academically oriented schools that provide a direct pathway to the university. (2) The types of schools students attend largely determine their educational and occupational expectations and impart a strong dose of realism in these expectations. Thus, the institutional arrangements of highly differentiated educational systems perpetuate socioeconomic inequalities quite early in the life course, well before students complete their education and enter the labor force.     

Maternal Reading Skills and Child Mortality in Nigeria: A Reassessment of Why Education Matters

Mother’s formal schooling—even at the primary level—is associated with lower risk of child mortality, although the reasons why remain unclear. This study examines whether mother’s reading skills help to explain the association in Nigeria. Using data from the Demographic and Health Survey, the analysis demonstrates that women’s reading skills increase linearly with years of primary school; however, many women with several years of formal school are unable to read at all. The results further show that mother’s reading skills help to explain the relationship between mother’s formal schooling and child mortality, and that mother’s reading skills are highly associated with child mortality. The study highlights the need for more data on literacy and for more research on whether and how mother’s reading skills lower child mortality in other contexts.     

Differences between Hispanic and non-Hispanic families in social capital and child development: First-year findings from an experimental study

Disadvantages faced by Hispanic children in the U.S., compared to non-Hispanic Whites, have been widely reported. Economic differences account for some of the gaps, but the social isolation of Hispanic families also serves as a barrier to children's success. Whereas Hispanic families tend to have strong kinship networks, their social ties often do not encompass the school and other authority systems. As a result, Hispanic families may have less access to social capital, that is, relations of trust and shared expectations that foster the flow of relevant information and support social norms that contribute to children's academic and social development. To study the role of social capital in child development, we embarked on a school-randomized trial in two cities with large Hispanic populations: San Antonio, Texas, and Phoenix, Arizona. In this paper, we report on first-year data from what will be a three-year longitudinal study, including 24 of an eventual 52 schools and about 1300 of what will be a sample of over 3000 children. We aimed to manipulate social capital through an intervention called Families and Schools Together (FAST), a multi-family after-school program that enhances relations among families, between parents and schools, and between parents and children through a sequence of structured activities over 8 weekly sessions. In the first year, 12 schools were randomly assigned to participate in FAST, and 12 served as controls. Data come from district administrative records, surveys of parents prior to FAST, and surveys of parents and teachers immediately after FAST. Surveys prior to FAST confirm that Hispanic parents have less extensive parent–school networks compared to non-Hispanic Whites. Comparisons of school means on post-FAST surveys indicate that parents in FAST schools experience more extensive social networks than those in control schools, but the differences are much more apparent in Phoenix than in San Antonio. Similarly, a pattern of better behavioral outcomes for children in FAST schools is evident in Phoenix but not San Antonio. Individual-level comparisons suggest that for some outcomes, effects may be larger for non-Hispanic Whites than for Hispanics, which would undermine potential contributions to reducing inequality.     

Consequences of economic inequality: Introduction to a special issue

As an introduction to the papers of this special issue on Consequences of Economic Inequality we first underline with a simple empirical exercise the relevance of studying the subject of consequences of economic inequality in many socially important fields. Next, we sketch the two main theoretical perspectives on the channels by which inequality exerts its effects: on the one hand, the psychosocial, which stresses the role of individual status and stratification, and, on the other hand, the neo-material, which puts the focus on resources at people's disposal. In our view the two are not mutually exclusive. Thirdly, we present each of the contributions and relate their results to these main perspectives. We find support for the view that inequality can magnify not only the differences between individuals or households in the resources at their disposal, but also the association between these resources and politics, well-being and social stratification.     

Soziale Ungleichheit und Bildungspartizipation im weiterführenden Schulsystem Österreichs

The paper investigates the relationship between social inequality and participation in the Austrian high school system (secondary level II). The European Community Household Panel is used as data basis. The results show differences in participation rate by sex and by the three classical dimensions of stratification, namely education, occupation and income of parents. Hence, social inequality still exists in Austria. Gender differences have been reversed: Nowadays, more girls attend high schools than boys. Inequalities are reduced by secondary technical and vocational colleges.     

Social Change and the Relationships Between Education and Employment

The relationships between education and employment have long been of interest to social scientists. During the transition from a completely agricultural economy to one that is developing nonfarm opportunities, however, the relationships between education and employment may dramatically change. We examine how two components of education—schooling enrollment and attainment—affect the transition to employment for men and women in the Chitwan Valley of Nepal. Using discrete-time event history models, we find that school enrollment tends to delay employment, while school attainment accelerates employment. We also test how these effects may have changed across successive cohorts. Over time, the effects of enrollment have become stronger, while the effects of attainment appear to have weakened. These shifts in the nature of education may be related to increasing conflict between student and employee roles, as well as changes in the types and availability of employment.     

Immigrants’ educational disadvantage: an examination across ten countries and three surveys

Studies on immigrants’ disadvantage focus predominantly on labour market perspectives. Immigrants’ poor education is a subject much less examined especially in a cross-national context. This paper examines differences in educational achievement between immigrants and natives across ten OECD countries. In English-speaking countries, immigrants fare best, while in Continental European countries they fare worse compared to natives. Whilst language skills seem to explain immigrants’ disadvantage in English-speaking countries, socioeconomic background and school segregation are further important determinants of immigrants’ gap in Continental Europe. Results presented are predominantly robust across three sources of achievement data: PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS.      

Unequal transitions: Selection bias and the compensatory effect of social background in educational careers

Previous studies have shown that social background inequality differs among educational transitions and it is stronger for those transitions that involve a higher risk of social demotion. This paper focuses on two processes that may account for part of the observed differences in social background inequality across educational transitions. First, it studies how the family of origin might compensate for a ‘false step’ in the early stage of young people's educational careers. This compensatory effect of social background can be described as the likelihood of having ‘a second chance’ for unsuccessful educational transitions. Second, it focuses on two unobserved factors that might potentially bias the effect of social background across educational transitions. These are the students’ unobserved cognitive and non-cognitive skills and their unobserved anticipated choices of dropping out of the education system. Two issues – the compensatory effect of social background and selection bias in educational transitions – are addressed by estimating a probit model with sample selection for the transition to post-compulsory education in Spain.     

Schools,Neighborhoods and Selection: Outcomes Across Metropolitan Los Angeles

What is the relationship between school segregation and neighborhood segregation across school districts in Los Angeles County, and are school district outcomes on reading and mathematics scores related to levels of school segregation across these districts? We compute segregation scores using US tract level data for 2000 and use reading and mathematics scores from California State tests. Data from the Los Angeles family and neighborhood survey are used to track individual residential changes and differences in the associated Woodcock Johnson scores. We show that there is a close link between levels of school segregation and neighborhood segregation and that many suburban school districts are relatively integrated across both neighborhoods and schools. When we examine average school district outcomes on reading and mathematics scores we do not find any relationship with levels of segregation. At the same time there is clear evidence of spatial sorting with poorer and lower scoring children moving into school districts (or zones with poorer achieving schools). The multi-level models of segregation and achievement show that the variance in achievement levels across districts is significantly greater than across schools within districts.     

Social background composition and educational growth

This paper examines the impact of intercohort changes in social background composition on changes in grade progression rates at selected schooling levels. It presents formal arguments that the relative and absolute effects of background composition on grade progression rates should decline over levels of schooling, and using data for white males born beteen 1907 and 1951, offers empirical support for these arguments. Whereas twentieth century increases in average educational attainment are primarily due to increases in grade progression rates at the elementary and secondary levels, future growth must occur through increases in transition rates beyond high school, given the near universality of high school graduation for cohorts born at midcentury. Our analysis shows that postsecondary progression rates are much less responsive to changes in family background composition than rates in the schooling process. Despite intercohort changes in background composition that are increasingly favorable to educational attainment, future educational growth may be slower than past growth because compositional effects on average attainment will be through progression rates where the effects are weak.     

The dynamics of school attainment of England��s ethnic minorities

We exploit a universe dataset of state school students in England with linked test score records to document the evolution of attainment through school for different ethnic groups. The analysis yields a number of striking findings. First, we show that, controlling for personal characteristics, all minority groups make greater progress than White students over secondary schooling. Second, much of this improvement occurs in the high-stakes exams at the end of compulsory schooling. Third, we show that for most ethnic groups, this gain is pervasive, happening in almost all schools in which these students are found.     

Allocation and distribution: A discussion of the educational transition model,with reference to the Italian case

The main characteristic of education in the past century has been its expansion: a major stratification research question associated with this is whether the inequalities of educational opportunities among classes have persisted or changed (diminished) over time. The educational transition model (29 and 30), adopted by the majority of scholars in the field, separates the study of allocation, that is class inequality in education, from that of distribution, the amount of schooling and its expansion, using conditional logits. A consequence of the way this distinction has influenced subsequent research has been the emergence of a sharp gap between macro-level research on the expansion of education and stratification studies.     

Immigration,ethnicity, and the loss of white students from California public schools, 1990–2000

This article investigates whether and the extent to which “white flight” from Hispanic and Limited English Proficient (LEP) students has been occurring in California’s public schools and further, examines the level (school or district) on which “white flight” may operate. Using school-level administrative data from the California Department of Education from 1990 to 2000, we estimate exponential growth rate models of white enrollment with school-level fixed effects. The results shed light on the implications of immigration for school segregation in the United States. The analysis indicates that white enrollment declined in response to increases in the number of Spanish-speaking LEP and Hispanic students, and that “white flight” from LEP or Hispanic students occurred more at the district than the school level in the case of primary schools, and at the school level for secondary schools. In addition, schools with higher percentages of Spanish LEP students in the school than the district, and with higher percentages in the district relative to the county, experienced greater losses in white enrollments than other schools, thus suggesting that higher levels of segregation in the wider metropolitan area accelerate white flight.