A detailed review of the education sector in Australia as in the data provided by the 2006 edition of the OECD's annual publication, 'Education at a Glance' is presented. While the data has shown that in almost all OECD countries educational attainment levels are on the rise, with countries showing impressive gains in university qualifications, it also reveals that a large of share of young people still do not complete secondary school, which remains a baseline for successful entry into the labour market.

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Education at a Glance

ans who take the issue of segregation from one of being unfair to being bad economic policy for cities, regions, states, and the United States as a whole. They are right. But many of you will also recall Nobel Laureate Gary Becker who argued that in the long run it does not pay to discriminate. Where did that get us? Each chapter contains important policy recommendations. This is particularly emphasized in a chapter by Greg Squires on fair housing enforcement as well as the editors’ closing remarks on attaining a just society. Segregation is the essential synthesis of what we need to know to move this issue forward. That will not be enough but it is what we have. Read it and use it.

Stratification in Higher Education: A Comparative Study

In this paper, we investigate the determinants of job mismatches with respect to field of education among school-leavers in Europe. In addition, the effects of having a job mismatch on the labour market position of school-leavers are examined. Special attention is paid to cross-country variation in this respect. The data that are used come from the EU LFS 2000 ad hoc module on school-to-work transitions. The results of the empirical analysis show that several individual, job, and structural characteristics affect the likelihood of having a job mismatch. Furthermore, the incidence of job mismatches differs between European countries: in countries where the share of upper secondary education students in school-based vocational education is high, the incidence of job mismatches among school-leavers is higher than in countries where this share is low. With respect to the labour market effects of job mismatches, the most important finding is that school-leavers with a non matching job achieve less occupational status than those with a matching one. This negative effect of job mismatches is smaller in countries where the share of school-based, respectively apprenticeship-type vocational education is higher. Moreover, the analysis reveals that school-leavers with a job mismatch use adjustment strategies to improve fit. A first strategy refers to job search activities: school-leavers with a non matching job more frequently look for another job than school-leavers with a matching job. In countries where the share of school-based vocational education is high, the effect of having a job mismatch on the likelihood of looking for another job is smaller than in countries where this share is low. A second adjustment strategy concerns training participation: on average, there is a negative effect of having a job mismatch on the probability of participating in continuous vocational training. However, in countries where the share of school-based, respectively apprenticeship-type vocational education is low, the impact of having a job mismatch on training participation is positive

Job Mismatches and their labour market effects among school-leavers in Europe. In: I. Kogan & W. Müller (eds.), School-to-work transitions in Europe. Analyses of the EULFS 2000 ad hoc module.

Reducing socioeconomic differences in college transfer requires understanding how and why parental education, occupational class, and family income are associated with changing colleges. Building on prior studies of traditional community college transfer, the authors explore relationships between those factors and two types of transfer among four-year college students. The results indicate that reverse transfer—the move from a four-year to a community college—is more common among students from less-educated families partly because of lower levels of academic performance during their freshman year. In contrast, students from advantaged backgrounds in terms of class and income are more likely than are others to engage in a lateral transfer—from a four-year to a four-year college—which may reflect individual preferences for changing colleges, rather than a reaction to poor academic performance. Implications for policy and practice are discussed in light of the fact that only reverse transfer is associated with lower rates of completion of bachelor's degrees.

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Beyond Access: Explaining Socioeconomic Differences in College Transfer. WISCAPE Working Paper.

Selections and social selectivity on the academic track: A life-course analysis of educational attainment in Germany

Previous research has shown that track mobility during secondary education is influenced by parental background. However, family background effects might vary due to institutional variations in the educational structure. Therefore, in our paper we compare social selectivity of track mobility in two countries, Germany and The Netherlands. Both countries offer a hierarchically tracked educational system, but differ in details. Further, both countries established educational reforms in the late sixties, changing the conditions for track mobility differently. In our empirical analyses using data from the Family Survey Dutch Population and the German Life History Study we find that changing to a higher track is more likely for students who face the threat of status demotion, whereas changing to a lower track is independent of status maintenance motives. Intra-secondary transitions occur less often in The Netherlands than in Germany and are less motivated by status maintenance. Educational legislation ...

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Social selectivity of track mobility in secondary Schools. A comparison of intra-secondary transitions in Germany and the Netherlands

The German secondary education system is highly stratified. However, the higher tracks have expanded vastly over the last decades, leading to substantial changes in the distribution of students across the different tracks. Following the German re‐unification, the school structure itself has also changed to some degree. Furthermore, several smaller education reforms have increased the flexibility of moving between different tracks. This study describes the changing distributions from 1970 to 2006 and examines whether social inequality in lower secondary education outcome and transition to upper secondary education has changed during the process. We find no robust evidence for change in social inequalities in the attainment of lower secondary school‐leaving certificates or entry into the various upper secondary options. Most but not all of the observed inequality is due to individuals’ lower secondary track placement.

A healthy sorting machine? Social inequality in the transition to upper secondary education in Germany

In the Netherlands, educational attainment is the result of a sequence of separate educational transitions. Because of the tracked nature of the Dutch educational system, students do not make binary stay-or-leave-decisions at each transition. After having entered one track of secondary education, students can change tracks during the entire secondary course. The initial track and the secondary school outcome therefore are incongruent for a significant proportion of the Dutch students. As social background partly predicts initial track placement, track changes and successful termination of the course, we suggest distinguishing conditional and unconditional effects of family background in the transition to secondary school outcome. This paper complements findings of previous research by taking into account the tracked structure of the Dutch educational system and the entire sequence of transitions in secondary education. For the empirical analysis, repeated cross-sections from the Family Survey Dutch Population (1992, 1998, 2000 and 2003) are used. Multinomial logistic regressions reveal that inequality in the outcome of secondary education is partly explained by the fact that initial track placement is socially selective and because this initial inequality is even enhanced by track changes during secondary education. The remaining 'conditional' effect of parental education, however, indicates that parental education works on top of this selection to prevent drop out. Inequality in secondary school outcome thus is a cumulative result of social background effects in a sequence of educational transitions throughout secondary education. Decreasing inequality over time is entirely explained by decreasing inequality in the transition from primary to secondary education.

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Success and failure in secondary education: socio-economic background effects on secondary school outcome in the Netherlands, 1927-1998

In the tracked educational system of the Netherlands, students at the end of secondary education have to decide whether they want to enter subsequent post-secondary or tertiary education. Depending on the previous qualification, they have the choice between up to four different options, including not entering further education. We propose, in line with prevalent theoretical approaches, that children from lower socio-economic backgrounds tend to make decisions that do not fully capitalize on their previously obtained qualifications. By means of multinomial logistic regression models we tested the unconditional and conditional effects of family background for entering the different tracks of post-secondary education. In the unconditional analyses we found effects for parental education on making a transition to all types of post-secondary and tertiary education, but the occupational status of the father seems to be only relevant for the transition to lower tier tertiary education. The conditional effects of parental education for making the transition to senior vocational education and university are strong, while the transition to lower tertiary education is not influenced by parental background characteristics. This shows that even with eligibility for the most prestigious tracks, children from lower socio-economic backgrounds tend to make less ambitious educational decisions. We also examined to what extent this inequality changed across time for the cohorts that terminated secondary education between 1932 and 1995. Decreasing effects of parental education indicate that the expansion of secondary education had the positive effect of leading more children from lower social backgrounds into favourable secondary education tracks, especially the intermediate general track. This equalization is carried forward through the entire sequence of educational transitions. The students from advantaged backgrounds nevertheless still profit from the parental resources in access to the most prestigious tertiary education institutions given secondary qualifications. Their head start into the academic track has not been reduced across cohorts.

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Transitions to Post-Secondary and Tertiary Education in the Netherlands: A Trend Analysis of Unconditional and Conditional Socio-Economic Background Effects.

Transitions, Tracks and Transformations. Social inequality in transitions into, through and out of secondary education in the Netherlands for cohorts born between 1914 and 1985

Nicole Tieben

Papers

Social selectivity of track mobility in secondary Schools. A comparison of intra-secondary transitions in Germany and the Netherlands

A healthy sorting machine? Social inequality in the transition to upper secondary education in Germany

Success and failure in secondary education: socio-economic background effects on secondary school outcome in the Netherlands, 1927-1998

Transitions to Post-Secondary and Tertiary Education in the Netherlands: A Trend Analysis of Unconditional and Conditional Socio-Economic Background Effects.

Transitions, Tracks and Transformations. Social inequality in transitions into, through and out of secondary education in the Netherlands for cohorts born between 1914 and 1985