Birgit Becker

This study examines the association between parents’ and students’ status aspirations and the educational choices of students from different socioeconomic status (SES) groups in Germany. Drawing on different research traditions and considering ceiling and floor effects, we analyze how striving for status maintenance versus status advancement relates to the transition to upper secondary and tertiary education among different SES groups. For the empirical analyses, we use data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) in Germany and apply segmented logistic regression models. Our analyses reveal that striving for upward mobility instead of status maintenance increases the probability of students from low SES backgrounds to make ambitious educational decisions. In the case of extremely high aspirations, they even catch up with the medium SES group but still have lower transition probabilities than students from high SES origins who strive for status maintenance. While we do not find any floor effects, we observe some indications for a ceiling effect among the high SES group. Our findings mainly speak in favor of status reproduction theories but extend this perspective by emphasizing the role of striving for status advancement in explaining variance in educational decisions among students from low and medium SES backgrounds.

1. In the current knowledge society, digital skills have become important skills for young adults’ daily life (Correa 2015). However, digital skills are not distributed equally across the populatio...

Political efficacy is a powerful predictor of political participation. Many traditional measures of efficacy in political science prompt survey respondents to think of “people like me”, thus evoking a group reference. However, without specifying which of multiple possible group memberships respondents ought to think of, answers may refer to completely different groups across respondents, resulting in imprecise measures. In this paper, we argue that political efficacy encompasses not only an internal and an external dimension, but also a third dimension, group efficacy, which reflects variation in degrees of system responsiveness to different groups. To empirically assess our argument, we developed new measures of political efficacy and conducted two large, register-based surveys among adolescents and adults in Germany. The results show that individuals have very different perceptions of group efficacy depending on their educational, economic, and migration backgrounds. With over 60%, a clear majority of respondents differentiate between group and external efficacy, suggesting that distinguishing these dimensions theoretically and empirically is important. Based on our evidence, we contend that a vague stimulus such as “people like me” blurs the differences between general and group-related dimensions of external political efficacy. We thus suggest that to adequately assess group efficacy, the concrete group of reference that the researcher is interested in should be specified, whereas no group reference should be made if the aim is to assess external efficacy.

Zusammenfassung: Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, ob die herkunftsspezifischen Unterschiede in den Computer- und Medienkompetenzen der Schüler*innen in den vergangenen 20 Jahren zu- oder abgenommen haben. Anhand der Unterscheidung von Zugangs- und Nutzungsunterschieden werden verschiedene theoretische Erwartungen hinsichtlich der Entwicklung digitaler Ungleichheit skizziert. Die theoretischen Überlegungen werden anhand der PISA-Daten für einen Zeitraum von 20 Jahren (2000–2022) überprüft. Deskriptiv lässt sich erkennen, dass sich die Zugangsmöglichkeiten zu digitalen Ressourcen über die Zeit verbessert haben, aber dass weiterhin herkunftsspezifische Unterschiede in Zugang und Nutzung digitaler Ressourcen bestehen. Auf Basis logistischer Regressionsanalysen und KHB-Effektdekompositionen wird ersichtlich, dass sich die Wirkungszusammenhänge zwischen den verschiedenen Einflussgrößen über die Zeit verändern und die sozialen Unterschiede in den selbsteingeschätzten Computer- und Medienkompetenzen der Schüler*innen in den vergangenen 20 Jahren signifikant zugenommen haben.

Zusammenfassung: Die Zahl der geflüchteten Schüler*innen an deutschen Schulen hat in den letzten Jahren zugenommen, was zu einer weiteren sprachlichen Diversifizierung der Klassen führte. Lehrpersonen sind zentrale Akteur*innen, wenn es um den Umgang mit Mehrsprachigkeit im Unterricht geht. Teil ihrer professionellen Kompetenz sind Überzeugungen, die sich auf ihr Handeln im Unterricht auswirken. Positive Lehrpersonenüberzeugungen zu Mehrsprachigkeit sind eine wichtige Voraussetzung für die Frage, ob Lehrpersonen Mehrsprachigkeit im Unterricht zulassen. Geflüchtete Schüler*innen als zumeist zunächst nicht-deutschsprachige Seiteneinsteiger*innen in deutsche Schulen sind besonders auf positive Überzeugungen von Lehrpersonen zu Mehrsprachigkeit angewiesen. Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht die Rolle von Lehrpersonenüberzeugungen zu Mehrsprachigkeit anhand von einer Befragung von Lehrpersonen (N = 323) und Schüler*innen (N = 74), die aus Syrien, Afghanistan und dem Irak geflüchtet sind. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Lehrpersonenüberzeugungen zu Mehrsprachigkeit den Zusammenhang von Lerngelegenheiten im Bereich Deutsch als Fremd- bzw. Zweitsprache und dem selbstberichteten Lehrpersonenhandeln in Bezug auf Mehrsprachigkeit im Unterricht mediieren. Zudem erweist sich aus Perspektive geflüchteter Schüler*innen die Schulkultur der Einzelschule als relevant für den Umgang mit Mehrsprachigkeit im Unterricht.

Unequal political participation increasingly challenges democracies. The turnout gap is particularly large among younger voters, with severe implications for future developments of democratic representation, legitimacy, and quality. This article focuses on the role of political efficacy beliefs in explaining unequal turnout among newly enfranchised citizens. We argue that internal political efficacy beliefs are particularly important for turnout among the newly enfranchised from lower-class backgrounds, as they lack alternative mobilizing factors such as politically aware and active parents, political knowledge, and mobilizing networks. Furthermore, we argue that once these voters successfully turn out in their first election, they are as likely as those from higher-class backgrounds to turn out in their second election. We empirically test these arguments using original longitudinal data on newly enfranchised citizens from three German federal states (Bundesländer). Overall, our results support the argument: Political efficacy beliefs are a stronger predictor of first turnout among young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds compared to those from more advantaged backgrounds, and those who do turn out are as likely as those with higher-class backgrounds to turn out in their second election. This highlights the relevance of political efficacy beliefs in the (re)production of persisting political inequality.

This article focuses on the role of teachers’ attitudes towards cultural diversity in teaching refugee students in Germany. We examine which patterns of attitudes towards cultural diversity are common among teachers, how these depend on their professional experience and how they correlate with the perceptions of problems in teaching refugee students. Using data from the project ‘Changing schools in a post-migrant society: School culture(s) in the current context of forced migration’, the results of cluster analysis show that there is a dividing line between teachers who support pluralistic approaches (i.e. multiculturalism, egalitarianism and anti-racism) and those who reject them. Overall, we identified four clusters: ‘pluralism sceptics’, ‘pluralism opponents’, ‘pluralism supporters’, and ‘pragmatists’ (who approved of all concepts). The ‘pluralism rejecters’ (clusters 1 and 2 combined) were the least experienced in teaching refugee children. The ‘pluralism supporters’ saw the fewest problems in teaching refugee students, while the ‘pragmatists’ had an above-average perception of problems. The ‘pluralism rejecters’ occupied a middle position in this regard, with one notable exception: they were particularly likely to perceive cultural differences as a problem in teaching refugee students.