(Mis)Matched College Aspirations and Expectations

The Role of Social Background and Admission Barriers

Bibliographic Data

ID2234879
AuthorsClaudia Finger (0000-0002-7923-957X, WZB Berlin Social Science Center, corresponding author), Claudia Claudia (0000-0002-3424-7998, Research Unit: Skill Formation and Labor Markets, WZB Berlin Social Science Center (WZB), Reichpietschufer 50, 10785 Berlin, Germany, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume38
Issue3
Pages472-492
Publication date2022-05-24
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEuropean Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0266-7215 • E-ISSN: 1468-2672
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/esr/jcab055
OpenAlexW4213232057
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited39

Not all high school students who wish to study think that they will be able to realize this wish. This article examines whether admission barriers to higher education (HE) are a potential reason for this mismatch between educational aspirations and expectations and whether they are more constraining for students from socially less advantaged backgrounds. It does so for the German context in which the role of admission barriers for social inequality in HE has long been neglected. Empirically, the paper uses a unique combination of individual data on high school students' educational aspirations and expectations and institutional data on admission barriers that vary by field of study. Findings indicate that the socially most privileged students stick to their college aspiration regardless of admission barriers to their aspired field of study. However, they seem to be willing to compromise their preferred field of study if this comes along with high admission barriers. Contrastingly, socially less privileged students seem willing to compromise both their general college aspiration and their aspired field of study if admission appears difficult. The concluding section discusses the implications of these findings for social inequality in education

Compromise · Context (archaeology) · Demographic economics · Economics · Field (mathematics) · German · Inequality · Social inequality · Social science · Sociology · Wish · Global Educational Reforms and Inequalities · Higher Education Research Studies · Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology

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