School tracking, social segregation and educational opportunity: evidence from Belgium (original) (raw)
Related papers
Incomplete equalization: The effect of tracking in secondary education on educational inequality
Social Science Research, 2013
This paper tests whether the existence of vocationally oriented tracks within a traditionally academically oriented upper education system reduces socioeconomic inequalities in educational attainment. Based on a statistical model of educational transitions and data on two entire cohorts of Danish youth, we find that (1) the vocationally oriented tracks are less socially selective than the traditional academic track; (2) attending the vocationally oriented tracks has a negative effect on the likelihood of enrolling in higher education; and (3) in the aggregate the vocationally oriented tracks improve access to lower-tier higher education for low-SES students. These findings point to an interesting paradox in that tracking has adverse effects at the micro level but equalizes educational opportunities at the macro level. We also discuss whether similar mechanisms might exist in other educational systems.
School tracking and equality of opportunity in a multilevel perspective
46Th Scientific Meeting of the Italian Statistical Society, 2012
Recently, the Italian schools have been deeply influenced by the "social tracking" phenomenon, which translates into the existence of students segregations into socio-economic classes. Typically, this phenomenon is measured on the basis of the socio-economic heterogeneity between classes, through the employment of the Gini index. However, because of the usual hierarchical structure of educational data, a more suitable method for heterogeneity measurement is recognized in multilevel models. Our proposal is focused on comparing different multilevel models to explain how performances heterogeneity and socio-economic status effect are portioned out between school and classes, with regard to students of the Fifth Grade of Primary School in the Lombardy region. In particular, we show that the existence of a high variability between classes, conjoint to a significant socio-economic effect, confirms the presence of a social tracking factor.
Tracking and Sorting in the French Educational System
2019
This paper provides an overview of tracking policies in secondary education in France. Drawing on two large datasets on educational trajectories and labour-market outcomes, it identifies patterns of social inequalities associated with track allocation in secondary education. It assesses the long-term consequences of track assignment and its mediating role in the association between social origin and occupational outcomes. Results confirm the large association between social origin and track allocation on the one hand, and between track attainment and higher education and labour-market outcomes at occupational maturity on the other hand. We also find that track attainment accounts for a large share of the association between social origin, measured either by parental education or by social class, and outcomes at occupational maturity. These results highlight the importance of tracking policies for social stratification in the French context.
The reproduction of inequity: The content of secondary school tracking
The Urban Review, 1982
This study's objective was to explore the relationship between tracking and educational inequality within schools. The following were addressed: how high-status knowledge and effective instruction are distributed among tracks, and how classroom relationships may differ among tracks. A cultural reproduction view of schooling was used to examine how differences which emerged may effect inequity for poor and minority students. Data were collected from students and teachers in222 English and mathe. matics classes in 25 secondary schools using questionnaires, interviews, and observation. Patterns of classroom variables are described, and differences between tracks explored using discriminant analysis. The findings, providing descriptions of marked differences in classroom processes and their relationship to educational inequality have both scholarly interest and implications for schooling policy. Tracking has been an almost universal practice in American secondary schools for the last 80 years. The view that tracking eases the instructional difficulties teachers face in working with diverse student groups and the belief that students learn better in classes where they are grouped with others of similar aptitudes and achievement levels have had wide acceptance. The extensive body of research on tracking and student achievement, however, has not borne out this latter belief. Much of the work in this area has been inconclusive. Indeed, the cumulative evidence has not supported the claim that homogeneous grouping enhances student learning. (See among many others Findley and Bryan, 1970; Persell, 1976.) However, considerable work on noncognitive student outcomes associated with tracking has found that placement in low-track classes has had substantial negative effects on students, including lowered self-concepts and aspirations and increased delinquency and misbehavior.
Tracking, School Mobility, and Educational Inequality
Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow
School tracking is defined as the placement of students into different school types, structured hierarchically by performance. In the majority of OECD countries, tracking takes place at the age of 15 or 16. In Russia, similarly, students are sorted into "academic" (high school) and "non-academic" (vocational training) tracks after Grade 9, at the age of 15. However, even before that split, Russian children are distributed among schools of differing types ("regular" schools, specialized schools, gymnasiums and lyceums), which some researchers refer to as "pre-tracking" [Kosyakova et al. 2016]. No empirical evidence as to how often students change school prior to formal tracking at age 15 has been available so far. Using the
Economic Journal, 2006
Even though some countries track students into differing-ability schools by age 10, others keep their entire secondary-school system comprehensive. To estimate the effects of such institutional differences in the face of country heterogeneity, we employ an international differences-in-differences approach. We identify tracking effects by comparing differences in outcome between primary and secondary school across tracked and non-tracked systems. Six international student assessments provide eight pairs of achievement contrasts for between 18 and 26 cross-country comparisons. The results suggest that early tracking increases educational inequality. While less clear, there is also a tendency for early tracking to reduce mean performance. Therefore, there does not appear to be any equity-efficiency trade-off.
Evidence and Persistence of Education Inequality in an Early-Tracking System: The German Case
Scuola Democratica, 2014
Evidence and Persistence of Education Inequality in an Early-Tracking System: The German Case This article reviews empirical evidence on the early tracking system in Germany and the educational inequalities associated with it. Overall, the literature confirms the existence of considerable social, ethnic, gender-and age-related inequalities in secondary school track placement. Studies on tracking timing and track allocation mechanisms reveal that postponement of the selection decision and binding teacher recommendations may reduce certain (mainly social) inequalities. Furthermore, recent evidence concerning long-term consequences of tracking on labor market outcomes suggests that sizeable built-in flexibilities in the German system succeed in compensating for initial (age-related) education inequalities. The paper concludes with an outline and discussion of the most promising pathways for future research in order to help design inequality-reducing policy recommendations.