Traditional versus experimental pathways to university: Educational aspirations among young Swedes with and without an immigrant background

In this paper, we investigate the different ways in which young people with and without an immigrant background, who have in common that they aspire for a higher education, picture their nearest future. We distinguish between two major pathways to a university education: a traditional pathway (direct transition from upper secondary school to university) and an experimental pathway (where university plans are mixed with other plans, such as work and travel). Data come from a school survey of 685 final-year students in 10 upper secondary schools in Malmö, the third biggest metropolitan area in Sweden. We find that it is much more common among youth with an immigrant background to plan for a traditional pathway, compared to youth of Swedish background who instead are more inclined to plan for experimentation. This difference remains when controlling for factors related to school performance and parental socioeconomic background.