Meritocracy and Institutional Setup: The Relative Importance of Primary and Secondary Effects on the Transition from

In literally all western societies educational attainment differs between children of different social origin. According to Boudon’s (1974) well-known micro-theoretical model of educational transitions, the inequality in educational opportunity stems from two sources: primary effects – which are all those that are expressed by the association between social origin and academic performance; and secondary effects – which are transition propensities differing between families of different social origin – even at the same level of performance. The evaluation of the relative importance of primary and secondary effects is the aim of a growing body of literature (e.g. Jackson et al. 2007). In this work I contribute to this line of research by a) evaluating the relative importance of these two effects at the transition to secondary education in Germany, where children are allocated to one of the various secondary school types b) assessing whether the substantive federal state (Bundesländer) differences in the transition regulations affect the relative importance of these effects. This transition is fundamental, since only the highest secondary school tracks gives access t