Keywords

1 Objectives and Research Questions of BiKS Project 5

International comparative studies have shown that educational disparities according to social background remain quite common in all industrial societies (Baumert et al. 2001; Blossfeld et al. 2016a, 2016b; Breen and Müller 2020; Bukodi et al. 2018; Erikson and Jonsson 1996; Shavit and Blossfeld 1993). In those cross-national comparisons, the German education system is often characterized as a particularly unequal institution owing to its early tracking and strong stratification—students as young as 10–12 years old are assigned to different types of secondary schools, namely ‘Hauptschule,’ ‘Realschule,’ and ‘Gymnasium’—which make early educational choices difficult to revise (Blossfeld et al. 2016b). Although disparities in educational opportunities among children from different social backgrounds in Germany have decreased somewhat in recent decades, substantial inequalities in educational opportunities by social background persist (Becker 2009; Blossfeld et al. 2015, 2020; Breen and Müller 2020; Henz and Maas 1995; Krais 1996; Müller 1998; Müller and Haun 1994; Schimpl-Neimanns 2000). Moreover, despite increasing permeability between types of schools and greater opportunities to catch up in educational attainment later in one’s school career, secondary schools in Germany continue to be characterized by a relatively high degree of stratification (Blossfeld 2018; Zielonka 2017).

Another distinctive feature of the German educational system is the so-called cultural sovereignty of the federal states (‘Kulturhoheit der Länder’), which gives federal states in Germany (‘Bundesländer’) responsibility for the legislation, organization, and administration of schools and universities within their borders. That arrangement has prompted the implementation of different institutional arrangements and structures in the German school system, the consequences of which have been documented in various PISA studies. Indeed, such research shows that educational participation in secondary schools and the distribution of students’ competencies at the age of 15 years differ substantially between Germany’s federal states (Baumert et al. 2002; von Below 2002).

In BiKS Project 5, special attention was paid to students’ primary school years, transitions to secondary school, and academic careers thereafter. In those early years of schooling, basic competencies are acquired that form the basis for the acquisition of knowledge in later years of education and constitute the foundation for parents’ decisions about their children’s education.

Boudon’s (1974) distinction of primary and secondary effects illuminates the interplay of social origins and competencies as well as educational decisions. Whereas primary effects refer to differences in competence levels that stem from different environments of socialization in and around the family (Becker 2007), secondary effects refer to differences arising from different (i.e., parents’ or students’) educational decisions, even if the students’ competence levels are basically the same. Parents’ (and students’) decision-making is seen as the result of cost-benefit calculations at particular educational transitions that vary by social class (Becker 2000; Boudon 1974; Breen and Goldthorpe 1997).

The first research goal of BiKS Project 5 was to examine the impact of social origin on achievement at school. In particular, the influence of social relations and intra- and extrafamilial school support on success at school was studied, measured in terms of not only children’s grades and competencies but also their self-concept, which needs to be strong enough to support motivated learning and is thus a central parameter for achievement at school (Köller and Möller 2006; Satow and Schwarzer 2003). The three following research questions were thus addressed by BiKS Project 5:

  1. 1.

    Do social relations within and outside the family have an additional influence on relevant dimensions of school success before and after the transition to secondary school?

  2. 2.

    Can differential effects of social relations be observed depending on social background?

  3. 3.

    How effective are home tutoring and privately paid tutoring in primary school, and to what extent do families from different social backgrounds use such forms of tutoring ?

The second research goal of BiKS Project 5 was to subsequently examine the process of parents’ decision-making about their children’s education shortly before and after their children’s transition from primary to secondary school. Given the early age (i.e., 9–11 years) of students at that first important school transition, the choice of secondary school depends heavily on parental decisions. To gain insights into parents’ decision-making, we applied the concept of parental aspirations, meaning parents’ aspirations for their children’s education. When realistic, parental aspirations can be interpreted as predictions of possible educational pathways or high education attainment given a child’s demonstrated competencies in primary school (Becker 2000). Such aspirations are influenced by a child’s perceived chances of attaining a specific degree, as well as by cost-benefit considerations regarding different academic trajectories (Haller 1968). Thus, on the topic of such decision-making and aspirations, the following research questions were also addressed in BiKS Project 5:

  1. 4.

    How do parental aspirations shape their decision-making processes as their children transition from primary to secondary school?

  2. 5.

    To what extent do different school institutions in different federal states (‘Bundesländer’) influence parental aspirations, and what is the importance of teacher recommendations in different states?

  3. 6.

    How is the transition from primary to secondary school shaped by social background, and to what extent are decisions concerning which type of secondary school to attend later maintained or revised in secondary school?

The project relied on school-level data from the longitudinal BiKS study 8-18. For primary school, data were available for three measurement points from the middle of Grade 3 to the middle of Grade 4. For secondary school, data were collected from Grade 5 to Grade 9 each year. Thanks to the panel design of the BiKS study and its stratified sample (i.e., students in classes), the data enabled a multilevel and longitudinal analysis, which subsequently facilitated the modeling of processes involved in the development of grades, competencies, and self-concept throughout students’ academic careers and their parents’ decision-making processes regarding secondary school and transitions therein. Moreover, because the BiKS study 8-18 covered both Bavaria and Hesse, data were available from two German states whose transition rules differ greatly and thus represent various opportunity structures for parents and students (cf. Kurz et al. 2007). The comparison of school transitions in Bavaria and Hesse is extremely interesting from a theoretical point of view.

At the end of the chapter, we briefly discuss the implications of the project’s findings and, in turn, what we recommend for policy.

2 Influence of Social Relations and Intra- and Extrafamilial School Support on Children’s Success at School

Influence of Social Relations on Success at School

Empirical research has repeatedly shown that origin-specific educational inequalities are rather persistent in Germany. On the basis of the longitudinal BiKS study 8-18 and using a statistical decomposition model to differentiate primary and secondary effects, Relikowski et al. (2010) found that the primary effects of social origin in primary school are strong. Moreover, regarding social capital, BiKS Project 5 has revealed that children from educationally disadvantaged households have less educational opportunity than children from households with higher educational backgrounds (Kleine 2014). Given those primary effects, the influence of social capital constituted a primary focus of BiKS Project 5. The influences of social relations are particularly important for success at school, given their status as additive and independent explanatory factors in statistical models. Beyond that, arguing that social capital is embedded within social relations between different actors, Coleman (1988, 1992) distinguishes social capital within the family from social capital within the family’s environment. That is, social capital is not necessarily connected to a family’s economic resources or human capital, and parents and children in educationally deprived classes can indeed develop relationships with individuals outside the family with higher human capital. As a result, children from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds can compensate for human capital deficits within their families by establishing contacts with actors outside the family. Meanwhile, concerning social capital within the family, Coleman underscores that children from families with privileged social background profit much more from strong, close social relationships within their families, because parents with higher human capital transfer to their children the (positive) experiences with education that they enjoyed themselves and their knowledge about the educational system. However, parents with lower human capital cannot draw on those resources.

Studying the importance of social relations for educational success, BiKS Project 5 used grade point averages (Kleine 2014; Schmitt 2012, 2014), grade levels (Luplow 2017; Schmitt and Kleine 2010; Schmitt 2012), school competencies (Luplow 2017; Schmitt 2014), and, as a key determinant of achievement at school, school self-concept (Kleine et al. 2013; Schmitt 2012). The results of BiKS Project 5 confirm hypotheses derived from the theoretical assumptions of Coleman’s social capital approach and can be summarized as follows. First, intra-school social capital, in the sense of high-quality relationships among students and between students and teachers, is closely related to academic success (Kleine 2014; Schmitt 2012, 2014; Schmitt and Kleine 2010). While BiKS Project 5 showed that intensifying the relationships with their classmates and teachers before the transition has no additional effect on performance growth (Schmitt 2012), changes in those relevant relationships are associated with the adjustment of a child’s school self-concept (Kleine 2014; Kleine et al. 2013; Schmitt 2012). Relationships with teachers are especially important for students in the intermediate vocational track—that is, Realschule (Schmitt 2014). Those findings underscore the importance of social relationship structures within the school for optimal learning. In addition, the ambitious educational goals of friends can positively affect a student’s success at school, which stresses the significance of shared values and norms for success at school (Kleine 2014; Schmitt 2012; Schmitt and Kleine 2010). Even after the transition to secondary school, it is especially important for students in the low academic track to be surrounded by friends with high aspirations (Schmitt 2014). In addition, BiKS Project 5 showed that school-relevant information and performance-enhancing knowledge can also be communicated via frequent parent-teacher contacts in primary school (Kleine 2014; Schmitt 2012; Schmitt and Kleine 2010). At a certain point, however, there is a negative correlation between the number of conversations between parents and teachers and grades (Kleine 2014). On that count, performance- or behavior-related problems seem to be the reason for more frequent contact and hence the observed effect.

A statistically significant influence of intrafamily social capital on children’s success at school was also found in BiKS Project 5. Both the structural and procedural features of a close parent-child relationship have a statistically significant independent influence on success at school. Furthermore, both indicators of school interaction and indicators that reflect everyday family life are shown to have explanatory power (Schmitt 2009, 2012). In addition, parents’ high idealistic aspirations for their children’s education, conceived as aspirations that do not take into account students’ achievement at school, are associated with success in school and the child’s school self-concept. It was hypothesized that more ambitious aspirations among parents affect their children’s learning success by increasing school support (Coleman 1992), particularly for parents with high educational attainment, whose higher human capital makes them more effective in translating their goals for their children’s education into concrete support (Kleine 2014; Schmitt 2012, 2014). Last, a differential effect has also been found for a more mundane aspect of intra-family relationships. Even when both groups feel respected, children with highly educated parents show a higher self-concept than children with parents with low education and thus seem to benefit more from their parental human capital (Kleine 2014).

The Impact of Intra- and Extra-Familial Support with School

Another research objective of BiKS Project 5 concerned family processes as an aspect of class-specific socialization that leads to differences in competence levels. On that topic, the project specifically focused on school-related family support processes (Luplow 2017) that parents can provide in the form of frequent support with homework or frequent additional (intra-familial) practice during homework. However, parents may also outsource support in the form of (extra-familial) paid tutoring. Assistance with homework and private tutoring are rational strategies by which parents can actively influence their children’s educational competence and ensure a transition to more challenging secondary schools. In that regard, BiKS Project 5 examined the extent to which parental support mediates family background and a child’s educational development. To that end, Eccles and Wigfield’s (2002) extended expectancy-value approach was followed to explain educational success as a result of intra- and extra-familial processes while also taking determinants of rational choice into account (Esser 1999). BiKS Project 5 additionally involved analyzing how parental and extra-familial support in the form of institutional tutoring affect children’s grades and competencies, as well as teachers’ recommendations and their actual transitions to secondary school. Along with the expectancy and value components that rational choice theory identifies as being crucial for decisions, Eccles and colleagues have included (socio-)psychological mediating factors such as self-concept and motives that are thought to influence decisions and school performance (Eccles et al. 1983; Jonkmann et al. 2010; Wigfield and Eccles 2000).

Social background has repeatedly been shown to positively influence students’ grades at school and linguistic competence (Baumert and Schümer 2001; Baumert et al. 2006; Bos et al. 2007; Schauenberg 2007; Schwippert et al. 2003). On that count, BiKS Project 5 revealed that assistance with homework and extra practice are widespread phenomena in families. The project’s descriptive results showed that half of the parents of students in Grade 4 reported frequently helping them with homework, while just under half reported frequently spending time giving them additional practice. At the same time, support can also be outsourced from families. While only 5% of the students received German-language tutoring, slightly less than 7% received math tutoring.

Unsurprisingly, whether students receive support depends on their performance in school. The worse their grades, the more often they are supported at home and receive tutoring. Also, when students show relatively poor performance in school and such performance may be reported to parents by their teachers, support at home tends to increase. In fact, parents are more sensitive to any change in performance in school than to the general level of performance itself.

In BiKS Project 5, we expected that social background would impact family support. However, our findings showed that social background did not play a major role in the use of tutoring. In the case of home learning, more highly educated parents tended to hold back and relied more on home learning only when their children’s grades worsened.

A mediating factor was parents’ perceived control beliefs, which were related to their decisions to support their children or seek external support if they themselves did not have a higher school degree. For parents with so-called Abitur (i.e., the general qualification for university entrance in Germany and the highest degree possible), control beliefs do not play any role. If highly educated parents want the Abitur for their children, then they become home-based supporters. By contrast, idealistic aspirations for the Abitur have no relevance for the use of private tutoring.

As for central (socio-)psychological mediators, we also examined children’s school self-concept and ability to manage homework. Children’s self-concept from their parents’ perspective influences family support only if the parents perceive their children’s self-concept to be high and if they themselves have also attained a degree in higher education. In that case, they hold back on home learning. The assessment of homework completion emerged as a clear predictor of both tutoring and parental support. If parents deemed their children’s completion of homework as an independent task and not requiring their particular help, then those students received less tutoring and less help from their parents overall regardless of their parents’ level of education.

According to rational choice theory, parents use domestic and institutional help strategically to prevent downward intergenerational mobility within the family. Both help with homework and extra practice, as well as tutoring, were more likely to be exercised by highly educated parents if they cared about the prestige of their child’s future profession. Thus, status maintenance seemed to be a key variable in decisions for parents with Abitur to give their children such forms of support. Beyond that, however, it was impossible to calculate separate models according to educational background for tutoring due to the low number of cases.

In contrast to our expectations regarding rational decision-making, financial costs were not a strong factor in parents’ decisions to provide their children with educational support. Thus, monthly household income did not show any influence on the use of tutoring.

Another key research question of BiKS Project 5 addressed the effectiveness of different forms of support. Support with homework had no effect on grades at the end of Grade 4, the teacher’s recommendation for upper secondary school (i.e., Gymnasium), or the actual transition to that track. However, additional practice tended to be negatively related to grades and the teacher’s recommendation.

In agreement with findings from other longitudinal studies (Guill and Bonsen 2011; Guill and Bos 2014; Hosenfeld 2011), BiKS Project 5 did not reveal any differences in the gaining of skills between students who received tutoring versus those who did not. In that respect, disadvantages can even be found in grades in German and math, as well as in teachers’ recommendations for higher school tracks. For the actual transition, however, no differences could be observed. The disadvantage for students who received tutoring may have several causes. For one, because there were no differences in gains in skills, only in grades, the differences in grades could be due to teachers’ evaluations. For another, tutoring seemed to signal students’ deficits and problems to teachers, which may have affected their assessment.

3 Parental Aspirations, Educational Decisions, and Children’s Trajectories in School

Parental Aspirations and the Choice of Different Types of Secondary Schools

BiKS Project 5 also involved investigating parents’ decision-making about their children’s education shortly before their children transition from primary to secondary school. Early educational transitions are more dependent on parents than later ones. For this reason, parents are treated as central actors in the empirical analyses. Of course, parents’ choices about their children’s education are essentially tied to their children’s performance in school because they constitute an important predictor of later success in school, later education costs, and expected benefits of degrees.

To explain parents’ aspirations and decisions concerning their children’s education, BiKS Project 5 first followed a rational choice approach (Esser 1999) before comparing the empirical results in light of an alternative theoretical interpretation: the Wisconsin sociocultural approach (Sewell et al. 1969, 1970). According to rational choice theory, all parents are assumed to have similar preferences for their children. However, based on their class-specific (i.e., economic and social) constraints, they evaluate different school degrees differently in terms of their expected costs and benefits. Per the theory, they thus choose the educational pathways for their children that maximize the expected returns (Breen and Goldthorpe 1997; Erikson and Jonsson 1996).

By contrast, the Wisconsin sociocultural approach views families’ educational decisions as being guided by class-specific values and norms (Sewell et al. 1969, 1970). Thus, parents in different social classes are assumed to have different, largely unconscious, but stable class-specific aspirations regarding their children’s highest level of education attainable (Gambetta 1996). This implies, of course, that parental aspirations should be rather constant across the child’s academic career.

In BiKS Project 5, the theoretical predictions of those two competing models were tested with a longitudinal approach (Kleine 2014; Kleine et al. 2009). First, it was found that a large proportion of parents adjusted their preferences for their children’s graduation when their children’s academic performance changed. A change in financial costs also seemed to be an important reason for the adjustment of parental aspirations. Parents considered financial costs to be more important if they had low educational attainment, whereas better-educated parents considered them to be relatively unimportant. Last, greater perceived benefits of degrees in higher education influenced parents’ decisions between intermediate secondary school (i.e., Realschule) and upper secondary school (i.e., Gymnasium) in favor of the more demanding ‘Gymnasium’. The results of BiKS Project 5 also showed strong group-specific differences in the stability and variability of realistic parental aspirations for their children (Kleine et al. 2009). Not only did parents with high levels of education show higher aspirations for their children than ones with low levels of education, but those aspirations were also more stable in their decision-making over time. Thus, even when children have comparable academic performance, parents with higher levels of education want higher degrees of education for their children. In rational choice theory, that phenomenon is known as the “secondary effect of social origin” (Boudon 1974). The fact that highly educated parents keep their parental aspirations stable in the relevant phase of decision-making when their children are in Grades 3 and 4 instead of adjusting them to their children’s actual achievement in school does not seem to be the result of different sociocultural values, as the Wisconsin sociocultural model claims, but instead driven by differences in the perceived attainability of high levels of education and the so-called status maintenance motive of highly educated parents (Becker 2000; Breen and Goldthorpe 1997). Better-educated parents simply know the school system better, have more opportunities to support their children financially and in providing parental support in learning, and are therefore more likely to maintain their original (i.e., higher) parental aspirations. They are also more likely to resist teachers’ recommendations that do not support the goals that they have set for their children (Kleine 2014; Zielonka et al. 2014).

Following the Wisconsin sociocultural approach, the influences of reference groups were also investigated in detail for significant others in BiKS Project 5 (Kleine 2014). The empirical results showed that parents perceive the educational aspirations of their children’s classmates’ parents as important and incorporate them into their aspirations for their own children. Thus, this indeed underscores the importance of adopting educational group norms (Kleine 2014).

The analyses of BiKS Project 5 further demonstrated that parents with daughters have higher aspirations than those with sons. Their decision between lower secondary school (i.e., Hauptschule) and intermediate secondary school (i.e., Realschule) is more likely to be made in favor of the latter if daughters are concerned, assuming equal grades between sons and daughters (Kleine 2014). One explanation could be that especially non-cognitive differences perceived by parents (e.g., greater diligence, more self-discipline) influence parents’ decisions in favor of girls.

Parents with migration background exhibit specific behavior as their children transition from primary to secondary school (see Blossfeld and Nester this volume). Their expectations for their children’s education are systematically higher than those of native parents with the same level of education, especially when children’s achievement-related disadvantages (i.e., due to greater deficits in German-language skills) are controlled for in the statistical analysis. Even if parents’ expectations concerning their children’s education decrease in the decision-making phase and thus become more realistic regarding their children’s actual performance, they still exceed the aspirations of native parents (Blossfeld and Nester this volume; Kleine 2014). That impact can be interpreted as a positive “secondary effect of ethnicity” (Kristen and Dollmann 2009). In the transition to secondary school, children with migration background thus have an advantage over other children with the same performance in school and are more likely to advance to types of schools that confer qualifications needed for higher education (Zielonka et al. 2013).

In BiKS Project 5, particular attention was also paid to the state-specific opportunity structures in Hesse and Bavaria (Kleine et al. 2010). In Bavaria, the transition from primary to secondary school is tied to a relatively strict recommendation from the teacher based on the child’s grades in a few core subjects that is difficult for parents to circumvent. By contrast, parents in Hesse are not as bound by teachers’ recommendations and can choose the type of school for their children with relative freedom (Bellenberg et al. 2004). In Hesse, the decision regarding what type of secondary school to send a child to can be postponed, sometimes by several years, because Hesse offers not only the Hauptschule, Realschule, and Gymnasium but also the integrated comprehensive school (‘integrierte Gesamtschule’) and cooperative comprehensive school (‘kooperative Gesamtschule’). With the integrated comprehensive school as an option, parents do not have to immediately decide the type of school for their children (i.e., Hauptschule, Realschule, or Gymnasium) when primary school ends (i.e., end of Grade 4). Instead, that decision can be shifted to when their children are older depending on the children’s academic performance in basic and advanced courses. In the cooperative comprehensive school, by comparison, the respective class conferences of the schools decide at the end of Grade 6 whether a child will be transferred to a specific school track. The analyses of Kleine et al. (2010) have also indicated that Hesse’s more open, permeable school system offers better opportunities for obtaining degrees in higher education than Bavaria’s relatively rigid one. In Hesse, more teachers’ recommendations for higher types of school were also given. Thus, in Hesse, when children demonstrated academic performance similar to their peers in Bavaria, not only parents’ expectations of their success in school but also teachers’ recommendations were geared towards higher educational attainment. Looking at the graduation rates predicted by the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the federal states (‘Kultusministerkonferenz der Länder’) in Germany (Sekretariat der Ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2007), those expectations and recommendations are also more promising. In Bavaria, by contrast, parents link their expectations for their children’s graduation more closely to their children’s academic performance in primary school, and teachers’ recommendations more often direct students towards lower and intermediate secondary schools.

In general, parents revealed different decision-making patterns in answering what was clearly not an either-or question. Whereas some parents were deliberative and calculated and changed their aspirations for their children over time depending on their academic performance, others had a static aspiration for their child across their academic career. In these situations parents’ educational background and the institutional regulations of the education systems in the federal states played important roles. Hesse gives parents greater freedom to maintain their aspirations, even if their children’s grades or teachers’ recommendations contradict those aspirations. As a rule, parents from educationally advantaged backgrounds are more likely to uphold their aspirations; compared with parents from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds, they usually know the school system well and have ample opportunities to support their children throughout their academic careers (Kleine et al. 2009).

Transition Behavior and School Trajectories during Secondary School

Despite frequent public discussions about the increasing permeability of the German school system, the transition from primary to secondary school remains the central branching point in children’s academic careers in Germany, careers that further develop in secondary school. The way in which parents navigate institutional rules and consequences for students in secondary school were also analyzed in BiKS Project 5 for both Hesse and Bavaria (Zielonka 2017; Zielonka et al. 2014). Established as well as innovative theoretical models were used to develop hypotheses about the revision or stabilization of decisions about school choice after the transition to secondary school (Zielonka 2017).

BiKS Project 5 showed that for transitions within the secondary school system, state-specific regulatory differences are also important. In Bavaria, for example, grade boundaries remain in place after transitions to higher secondary school tracks. In Hesse, by contrast, a change occurs in the decision-makers; there, not the parents but the class conference of secondary school teachers decides, following a parent’s request, whether their child’s transition to a higher track in secondary school is reasonable and possible. At the same time, in both federal states moving to a lower secondary school track is always possible on a voluntary basis and even becomes obligatory for students after a grade is repeated twice.

How parents and students use differences within the institutional framework for revising their choice of secondary school becomes clear by examining the trajectories of those students from BiKS-8-18 who changed the type of school at least once. Such changes are similarly frequent in both federal states, while certain differences are important. In Hesse, changes to other non-tracked types of schools (e.g., comprehensive schools) are very common, especially between the first and second half of the school year. In Bavaria, however, (upward) transfers from the Hauptschule dominate, and such changes mostly occur in the summer between school years.

The question then arises as to whether and how selective school progressions are and which factors are important in that process. In examining decisions of school choice and trajectories in secondary school, we again applied Boudon’s (1974) distinction between primary (i.e., performance-related) and secondary (i.e., decision-related) effects of social origin.

The analyses of BiKS Project 5 revealed social differences in Bavaria and Hesse, especially when the Hauptschule was chosen as the initial type of school after primary school. Thus, children from educationally advantaged families in Bavaria more often advanced from Hauptschule to higher tracks (e.g., Realschule or Gymnasium). Conversely, students from less-educated families tended to drop out of Gymnasium more often, even after controlling for performance in school, age, and the initial type of secondary school. Children from better-educated families also had a higher propensity to move from lower secondary (i.e., Hauptschule) to intermediate and/or upper secondary school types or to keep their position in the intermediate secondary school (i.e., Realschule) and the upper secondary school (i.e., Gymnasium). Put differently, BiKS Project 5 revealed a clear secondary effect of social origin.

Again, a number of theoretical explanations for those secondary effects have been suggested, mostly stemming from the rational choice framework (Becker 2000; Breen and Goldthorpe 1997; Erikson and Jonsson 1996; Esser 1999). Added to that, ideas about the effect of class-related aspirations (Sewell et al. 1969, 1970) and the role of social and cultural capital have been examined (Bourdieu 1982; Bourdieu and Passeron 1971; Coleman 1988). In an attempt to overcome the limitations of rational decision theories and as a bridge to other theoretical approaches, a relatively recent adaptation of the frame selection theory for concrete education-related decisions (Esser 2005; Kroneberg 2005; Stocké 2013) was tested in the empirical analyses of BiKS Project 5 (Zielonka 2017). In addition, to better account for the dynamic nature of school trajectories, theoretical concepts from research on the life course (Blossfeld and Shavit 1993; Müller and Karle 1993) were used.

In the empirical analysis, the subjectively assessed probability of success proved to be highly important for moves between secondary schools in either direction (Zielonka 2017). Cost-related factors attached to potential types of schools or changes to other tracks in secondary school were not statistically significant, contrary to the suggestions of Breen and Goldthorpe’s (1997) model and as suspected by Erikson and Jonsson (1996). The probability assessment of being able to maintain or improve one’s own status, as proposed by Esser (1999), was also of little relevance when considered on its own. On top of that, the difference in the subjective utility between a child’s current type of school and their targeted type predicted socially selective mobility behavior less well than differences in subjectively determined probabilities of success. A change in the relevance of factors related to rational choice among parents and children over the course of secondary education, as expected by the life course perspective, could be empirically detected for downward movements in school and the perspective of students. It appears that the expected probabilities of success perceived by students for moves to less prestigious types of schools increase in importance. Thus, parents as well as children seem to be significantly driven in their decisions by what is possible and less by what seems to be desirable or sufficient from a rational actor’s perspective, given their own resources or starting position. Coleman’s (1988) theoretical claims about the social capital of the family, operationalized here in terms of social relations to and activities in school, played a substantial role only in the avoidance of relegation.

The idealistic aspiration, by contrast, which is somewhat independent of a student’s current academic performance and prospects for success, turns out to be a stable predictor of mobility behavior even when performance in school is controlled for. That finding supports the ideas of the Wisconsin model that such aspirations create a status-dependent cultural or normative target space for educational decisions. Particularly for parents and for the sake of potential upward mobility, the analyses of BiKS Project 5 suggest that their importance even increases during secondary school.

Those findings indicate the simultaneous applicability of two explanatory models: the rational choice model, focusing on the costs and benefits of educational options, and the normative model, referring to class-specific values related to social networks. Thus, decisions about children’s education in secondary school can be explained by different action logics and modes of decision-making. Depending on the decision-making situation, actors switch between automatically spontaneous versus well-considered rational action modes, as discussed in the model of frame selection (Esser 2005; Kroneberg 2005; Stocké 2013). Thus, the analyses of BiKS Project 5 suggest two temporally and mutually exclusive but complementary explanatory modes of decision-making applied in different situations. On that topic, Zielonka (2017) has empirically shown that the activation of a specific decision-making mode can moderate central explanatory factors (i.e., rational vs. normative). The model of frame selection was also supported by empirical evidence showing that ideal aspirations are significantly influenced by the social frame of reference and, contrary to the basic assumption of the Wisconsin school, are not independent but negatively related to the development of performance in secondary school. Thus, the importance of children’s performance to the change in parental aspirations and the aspirations of children and adolescents also depends on the homogeneity and strength of the aspiration frame, which is ultimately consistent with the predictions of the frame selection model for decisions about education. If there is a homogeneously high aspiration for a child among significant others in parents’ lives, then the child’s poorer performance in school will lead to a smaller reduction in the parent’s aspiration than when aspirations in the social environment are more heterogeneous, less clear-cut, or even absent. Similar moderating patterns can be found for the ideal graduation-related goals of children’s friends on the achievement-related variance of their own aspirations. As for mode selection, the moderating effects of the ideal aspirations of parents’ significant others could be demonstrated at least for students in upper secondary school (‘Gymnasium’) and intermediate secondary school (‘Realschule’). Moreover, the fit of the child’s or adolescent’s personal situation within a social context also seems to influence how changed performance in school impacts the selection of a rational or automatic spontaneous mode. The same changes in performance lead to corresponding thoughts about upward or downward mobility between types of school later or less frequently among parents if the type of school in the environment and the school type currently attended—and hence the desired degree—by the child are the same. In turn, that dynamic, in combination with the demonstrably moderating effects of a more automatic spontaneous mode, is likely to enhance the impact of normative social framings. It also suggests that this type of integrative theory offers a relatively coherent explanation for the observed persistence of normative aspects in decisions about education, even in secondary school.

4 Theoretical Implications and Recommendations for Policy

Theoretical Implications

BiKS Project 5 has provided many important descriptive findings and involved the testing of established as well as innovative explanations for disparate school trajectories and their outcomes in light of social background.

We have observed a lack of studies in Germany on how social relationships impact achievement at school. BiKS Project 5 revealed that Coleman’s (1988) theoretical model can also be applied to Germany’s stratified school system by taking into account origin-specific modes of action. We were also able to demonstrate that the change in the perceived quality of relationships is associated with a change in school self-concept. Last, implementing an extended expectancy-value model to explain social differences in intra- and extrafamilial school support enabled us to link important sociological and psychological concepts (e.g., socioeconomic background, status maintenance, self-concept and motives). BiKS Project 5 additionally showed that the same decision parameters are important for all parents, independent of their level of education. Although the likelihood of receiving different forms of support regarding social background is similar, there are clear origin-specific differences in the motives and expectations regarding forms of support.

Theoretical approaches explaining educational decisions refer either to educational aspirations shaped by the origin-specific social environment or to origin-specific individual (e.g., economic or social) constraints that lead to different cost-benefit considerations. In the past, the dynamic interdependences of those two models and performance in school remained quite opaque. With the help of the longitudinal BiKS-8-18 data, we were able to demonstrate that most parents’ aspirations for their children to graduate changed. Moreover, parents’ decisions also depended on interpersonal influences, which lead to the adoption of parental aspirations shared by the social origin group. At the same time, the assumption that parents reevaluate the probability of their child’s achieving Abitur due to a change in the parameters of academic performance and thus the probability of success, as well as anticipated temporal and financial costs, was empirically supported. Thus, BiKS Project 5 generated empirical evidence of the validity of both theoretical approaches, the influence of social relations, and rational choice theory. Thus, in theoretical terms, the situation does not present an either-or choice. Whereas some parents tended to take a more deliberative, calculated approach, others tended to make their decisions at a relatively early age.

BiKS Project 5 also showed that both the institutional requirements of the education system and parents’ educational background interact and play a major role in decisions about their children’s education.

Based on testing the competing theoretical explanations in secondary school, the results showed that parents were again driven in their decisions by what was possible given their children’s academic performance and the resources of their socioeconomic standings. Thus, the project’s results support what the theory of rational actors would likely suggest. At the same time, depending on the situation and their frame of reference within the social environment, parents and children also maintain quite stable aspirations and act in normative ways. That result supports the theoretical idea of a cognitive dual process model assuming different action logics and modes of decision-making, including those suggested by the model of frame selection.

Recommendations for Policy

For policymakers and school practitioners, the empirical findings of BiKS Project 5 suggest four recommendations for creating a supportive learning environment in schools and promoting greater equity in educational opportunities. First, the results concerning how social relations influence children’s success in education stress the centrality of intra-family and family-school relations. Because parents sometimes feel overwhelmed with questions regarding their children’s upbringing and education, an important policy goal should be to establish support networks, strengthen self-organized networks, and promote professional family support. Indeed, some types of parental training and support have been shown to reduce problematic behaviors and conflicts within the family (Villiger et al. 2010; Wild and Gerber 2009).

Second, it seems necessary to advance the competencies of teachers. Teachers can positively influence the self-concept of students through their relationships with children and their feedback. For teachers, continuous training could also be a way to strengthen their didactic and pedagogical skills. Another important goal should be to improve communication between families and schools. Ideally, parents should obtain the information that they need through a steady, direct flow of information from schools and teachers, which would provide more behavioral security for parents.

Third, the findings of BiKS Project 5 also point to the need for greater equality in educational opportunities in school. The limited possibilities for correcting decisions about the type of school to attend later in a student’s academic career, especially regarding transitions to more demanding secondary schools, and the fact that the early division of students to secondary school tracks after primary school leads to scissor effects in the development of children’s achievement at school and remain problematic. Therefore, particularly disadvantaged groups could benefit from a later transition to more ambitious tracks in order to compensate for lower competencies at the beginning of primary school. The expansion of all-day schools with individual support could also be a way to reduce social inequalities. All-day schools and afterschool programs are a relief for families, and they reduce or even eliminate the need for tutoring. Empirical evidence from BiKS Project 5 suggests that school-based assistance with homework and full-day services are associated with a lower likelihood of using tutoring (Guill 2012). In that respect, offering individualized support is important. The results of the project also show that anticipated costs lower parental aspirations, especially for children from lower social classes. Because educationally disadvantaged parents are more likely to decide against Gymnasium for their children at the end of Grade 4, even despite a teacher’s recommendation, more attention needs to be paid to counseling those families. In that case, information about the necessary requirements as well as available support options and possibilities of later corrections of type of school could be a way to boost the educational opportunities of children from educationally disadvantaged families.

Last, in Germany, a society that strives for equal opportunity, the transition to secondary school should be uniformly regulated regarding parents’ and teachers’ decisions across all federal states. Those countrywide standards for secondary school entrance requirements could reduce unequal educational opportunities.