Heiko Quast

Unequal access to university and the decision processes that give rise to it are important factors in the accumulation of educational inequalities. In this paper, we investigate a specific aspect of such decision processes by focusing on those students who change their original plans to start a (nontertiary) vocational education and decide to pursue a tertiary degree instead. In doing so, we find that more than one-fifth of the students in our sample who originally planned to pursue a vocational education change their original decision in this way.

Despite reform efforts in education policy, social inequalities in the transition to tertiary education still persist in Germany. Following Boudon’s (1974) distinction between primary and secondary effects of social origin, various studies have addressed the question to what extent these effects contribute to social inequality, but they usually only approximate the explanatory contribution of secondary effects. By estimating a decomposition analysis based on a current data set from the German Panel Study of School Leavers, we are able to examine the extent to which primary and secondary origin effects, and especially their individual components, explain social inequalities in the decision to enrol. It turns out that differences ...

Germany has a highly differentiated school system which opens up different paths to higher education entrance qualifications. However, recent sociological research on school leavers' qualification decisions has mainly only included selective aspects of the previous educational biography. The aim of this article is, therefore, (1) to identify the various patterns of educational progression before the higher education entrance qualification is acquired and (2) to determine the extent to which the decision to enter a university, a university of applied sciences, or not to enrol differs according to these patterns. Special attention is paid to the classic inequality dimensions of gender and educational background. To investigate these questions

The DZHW-Panel Study of School Leavers 2018 is part of the DZHW-Panel Study of School Leavers survey series, in which standardized multiple surveys are used to collect information on the post-school careers of school leavers with a (school) higher education entrance qualification. As a rule, several survey waves are conducted at different times before and after the acquisition of the higher education entrance qualification. Accordingly, this is a combined cohort-panel design. The panel 2018 is the 21st cohort of the survey series of which the data of the first survey wave will be published first. [...] Full abstract: https://doi.org/10.21249/DZHW:gsl2018:1.0.0

While there are numerous studies on the influence of study opportunities on the decision to attend higher education, studies on determinants of school leavers´´ regional mobility are comparatively rare. This article addresses the question which factors influence the geographical distance between school location and university. Using theories of rational choice, we develop a theoretical framework that integrates several mechanisms explaining mobility. For the analyses, we employ a mobility measure of geographical distance (in kilometres) between the university and the school where the university entrance qualification was obtained.

Alongside the educational expansion and internationalisation of economies, it has become more important for students’ labour market success to spend part of their studies abroad. However, only a fraction of German students studies abroad. In particular, students from underprivileged families refrain from doing so. While the social selectivity of international student mobility is well documented, the mechanisms underlying this pattern of inequality are insufficiently understood. Aiming to narrow this research gap, we examine an early stage of the process leading to international mobility and address the question why students from underprivileged families intend to study abroad less often.