Educational mobility and school-to-work transitions among disadvantaged students

PISA data-based internationally comparative publication on equity in education.The comparative chapter based on databases of five countries having installed longitudinal follow-up studies based on their national PISA samples, including TREE. (chapter 5, p. 141ff.) Intro verbatim: "This chapter uses longitudinal data from five countries (Australia, Canada, Denmark, Switzerland and the United States) to examine the relationship between cognitive competencies at age 15 and educational attainment and early labour market outcomes at age 25. It also explores different sources of disadvantage, related to a student’s home, school and social environment, which contribute to skills gaps during compulsory education and reduce the upward social mobility of children from less-educated families." Summary p. 169 "When students with low expectations are grouped together in the same learning environment, their attitudes towards schooling and perceptions of future potential are reinforced. Research in sociology suggests that aspirations for further education tend to be higher when students attend a school where the average socio-cultural intake is also higher (Dupriez et al., 2012[63]). Though these results do not imply a causal link, they highlight the importance of considering the possible effects of school composition and social stratification on educational mobility. The analysis of longitudinal data for a limited number of countries reveals that the difficulties disadvantaged students must overcome in order to move up the education ladder are numerous and varied, involving a combination of individual, family, school and even country-level factors. Therefore, it is crucial to identify these factors, and their contribution to the observed gaps in academic performance and educational mobility, in order to design efficient and integrated policies that address the needs of disadvantaged students. Greater efforts to develop longitudinal studies, or to link national and international assessments with administrative records, may prove a worthwhile investment in order to better understand how upward educational mobility works.