Educational Expansion and Educational Participation. Or: Why more and more pupils choose the Gymnasium as secondary school

Becker, Rolf (2000). Educational Expansion and Educational Participation. Or: Why more and more pupils choose the Gymnasium as secondary school. Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft, 3(3), pp. 447-480. Springer VS 10.1007/s11618-000-0043-2

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This investigation is an attempt to answer the question as to why more and more school pupils have chosen the Gymnasium for their secondary school education in post-war West Germany. Based on the theory of subjective expected utility, mechanisms of parental educational decisions will be developed. In this, it will be assumed that increasing educational motivation coupled with changes in the subjective evaluation of the cost/benefit of higher education were indeed important conditions for an increasing participation in education. These were, however, in turn, the result of educational expansion. The empirical analyses for three time periods – 60s, 70s, 80s – confirm these assumptions to a large degree. Additionally, empirical evidence was found to suggest that, next to the intentions of parents and the educational 'career' of their children, structural moments of educational expansion and their own inertia played an important role on the pupils’ transition from one educational level to the next. Finally, indications were found that the persistent class-specific educational inequality stems from a constant balance in the relative cost-benefit advantages between social classes.

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