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“What’s High School Got to do With It?” Secondary School Composition, School-Wide Social Capital and Higher Education Enrollment

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Abstract

This study investigates whether the ethnic and socioeconomic composition of the secondary school affect higher education enrollment and program choice (non-university higher education or university) in an educational system using a separation model. School-wide social capital is investigated as an underlying mechanism to explain how school composition affects higher education enrollment. Results of logistic multilevel analyses, carried out on the International Study of City Youth (ISCY) data of 1131 Flemish students across 30 schools, demonstrated that students enrolled in migrant concentration schools showed lower rates of higher education attendance because these schools were associated with a low socioeconomic composition. Attending high migrant composition schools and/or high socioeconomic composition schools was beneficial to attend university programs. High-quality peer relationships mediated these composition effects. Additionally, a boosting effect of teacher-student relationships and a buffering effect of high-quality peer relations at school were found, rendering these interesting tools for educational policy makers to decrease social inequality in higher education enrollment and program choice.

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Notes

  1. Bivariate analyses and results are not presented, but are available upon request.

  2. Additional stepwise analyses not shown due to space limitations, but available upon request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Special Research Fund, Ghent University, Belgium under Grant Number 01N03518. In this article, data of the International Study of City Youth (ISCY) was used, which is an international collaborative project designed and implemented by various research partners from across the world. The cities participating in the study are Barcelona (Spain), Bergen (Norway), Bordeaux (France), Ghent (Belgium), Melbourne (Australia), Montréal (Canada), Reykjavik (Iceland), San Diego (US), Santa Barbara (US), Sacramento (US), Santiago (Chile), Tijuana (Mexico), Turku (Finland), and Wroclaw (Poland). The project is led by the Centre for International Research on Education Systems (CIRES) at Victoria University, Australia. We would like to thank all researchers that contributed to this international project. The International Study of City Youth has received funding from various sources. We owe a special thanks to the Australian Research Council, the Victorian Department of Education and Training, and CIRES at Victoria University, Australia. Moreover, for data used in this article we have received further funding the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), the Special Research Fund of Ghent University, Belgium, and the Department of Sociology at Ghent University.

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  1. Department of Sociology, Ghent University, Korte Meer 5, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Isis Vandelannote & Jannick Demanet

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Appendix 1

Appendix 1

Social capital concept

Survey item

 

Friendship quality

I wish I had other friends at school (reversed).

My friends at school accept me for who I am.

I trust my friends.

My friends at school respect my feelings and thoughts.

Answer options ranged from Absolutely not (0) to Absolutely (5).

Scale’s Cronbach’s alpha = 0.747.

Student-teacher relationship

I get along well with my teachers.

Answer options ranged from “absolutely disagree” (0) to “absolutely agree (4)”

Parent-teacher relationship

Do your parents attend the parent-teacher conferences?

Answer options ranged from “absolutely disagree” (0)to “absolutely agree (4)”

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Vandelannote, I., Demanet, J. “What’s High School Got to do With It?” Secondary School Composition, School-Wide Social Capital and Higher Education Enrollment. Res High Educ 62, 680–708 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-020-09617-5

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