Primary and Secondary Effects

Project Description

 

The fundamental question we start from and which we will try to bring closer to an answer is: Why does educational attainment differ between children of different social origin? We know that social selection is a fact in educational systems around the world and we have some knowledge of, and hypotheses about, the mechanisms behind it, but we still have a long way to go before we more fully understand the processes involved.

 

Boudon (1974) made the important observation that class differences in educational attainment depend on differences in educational performance and on differences in transition propensities, given performance, labelled, respectively, primary and secondary effects. In this project we intend to further explore the magnitude and relative importance of such effects in the countries involved, to look at change over time and whether change in overall inequality of educational opportunity can be attributed to change in one or both of these effects. The project will build on recent research by participants in the project, as published in Erikson et al. (2005), Jackson et al. (2007) and Erikson (2007). In these publications new methods for distinguishing primary and secondary effects have been introduced and applied, and we intend to further develop the methodological instruments for studying transitions in school.

 

One reason why it seems meaningful to decompose the association between class origin and educational attainment is that we assume that there are different causal mechanisms behind the primary and the secondary effects. While primary effects can be assumed to depend on various factors in the family of orientation, like material conditions and socialisation, secondary factors depend on choices made by children, their parents and by schools. In the project we will try to extend the theoretical understanding of these mechanisms and to test such understandings.

 

The basic information we start from refers to differences in school grades between children of various class origins and transitions from primary school to secondary and from secondary to tertiary given grades. The associations between class of origin, grades and transitions will be compared over time and between countries. Of obvious interest is to try to establish the extent to which the selection process varies – or does not vary – with variation in educational systems between countries or over time.

 

 

Questions

a. We know that Inequality of Educational Opportunity (IEO) has decreased in some countries but perhaps not in all. To what extent can changing primary or secondary effects – or perhaps both – account for the change in IEO?

 

b. Do we find differences in the relative importance of primary and secondary effects between countries and, if so, can observed differences be related to differences in the institutional setup, primarily the educational system?

 

c. Do these primary and secondary effects differ between boys and girls?

 

d. Are the results robust if we apply different methods of estimation?

 

e. Do the primary and secondary class effects differ from primary and secondary effects of other characteristics of the family of orientation, i.e. education and income, and what is the combined importance of these background factors?

 

f. Can we explain the primary and secondary effects with other characteristics, foremost test scores, motivation, cultural resources? Does the relative strength of primary and secondary effects vary when utilizing different indicators for academic competencies? Is there any evidence that secondary effects pertain to rational choices rather than socialisation?

 

g. How do the effects vary with the level of transition – to secondary and tertiary education? Are there differences if we look at more specific transitions at the lower or upper end of the school career e.g. dropout in secondary education or transition to the prestigious tracks in tertiary education?

 

h. Do the effects vary between fields of education, e.g. engineering and liberal arts?

 

 

Data

National longitudinal cohort studies

 

Methods

Primary and secondary effects can be estimated through the integration of a function of performance by transition propensities (Erikson et al. 2005) and through a development of the Blinder-Oaxaca approach (Farlie 2005).

 

 

References

Boudon, R. (1974):  Education, Opportunity, and Social Inequality. New York: Wiley.

 

Erikson, R. (2007): ‘Social Selection in Stockholm Schools: Primary and Secondary Effects on the Transition to Upper Secondary Education’ in S. Scherer, R. Pollak, G. Otte and M. Gangl (eds): From Origin to Destination. Trends and Mechanisms in Social Stratification Research. Frankfurt a. M. and New York: Campus.

 

Erikson R., J.H. Goldthorpe, M. Jackson, M. Yaish and D.R. Cox (2005): ‘On Class Differentials in Educational Attainment’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Vol. 102:27, pp. 9730-33.

 

Farlie, R.W. (2005): ‘An Extension of the Blinder-Oaxaca Decomposition Technique to Logit and Probit Models’, Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, 30: 305-316.

 

Jackson, M., R. Erikson, J.H. Goldthorpe and M. Yaish (2007): ‘Primary and Secondary Effects in Class Differentials in Educational Attainment: The Transition to A-Level Courses  in England and Wales’, Acta Sociologica, 50(30): 211-229.