Horizontal Differentiation of Upper-Secondary Education and Students' Transitions

1. Institution matters: Horizontal differentiation of upper-secondary education and students’ transitions after leaving high school PepkaBoyadjieva & PetyaIlieva-Trichkova

2. OUTLINE • Introduction • Theoretical considerations • Context • Hypotheses • Data, variables & method • Findings • Discussion & conclusions

3. INTRODUCTION (1) Background • Many studies have analyzed how the vertical stratification of education influences people’s life (eg. Kogan & Müller, 2003). • Recently, there has been a growing body of studies on horizontal differentiation in education.Two lines of research: Our argument: Since, in the context of universal secondary education, horizontal differentiation has become one of the mechanisms for keeping educational inequalities effectively maintained, this differentiation and its influence on youngpeople’s pathways needs to be studied in a more sophisticated and deeper way. between general and vocational secondary education (eg. Müller & Shavit 1998) between levels of stratification of different national educational systems (eg. Allmendinger, 1989).

4. INTRODUCTION (2) Research question How does the horizontal differentiation of secondary education affect students’ transition after upper-secondary education? Sub-questions • Does (How) the type of secondary education reshape the effect of students’ academic achievement on their patterns of transition after leaving high school? • Does (How) the type of secondary education moderate the effect of social background on students’ transition after leaving high school? Context – Bulgaria: high level of internal differentiation which goes beyond the traditional division between general and vocational education.

5. theoretical considerations • Institutional perspective to education and horizontal differentiation of secondary education • Students’ transitions after secondary education

6. Institutional perspective to Education • Understands education as a set of formal and informal institutional rules which simultaneously constrain and unable students’ behaviour (North, 1990; Scott, 2001). • Thus, it turns attention to the extent to which individual lives are channelled and shaped by the structural organisational settings in which they lived (Kerckhoff, 1993). • Focuses on the power of education as an institutional system and considers the effects of educational institutional rules not only on individuals but on societies as well. • Stresses that education functions as an allocating institution, which classifies and allocates individuals to positions in society also on the basis of types and years of education, irrespective from what they have learned in schools(Meyer, 1970; 1977).

7. Relevance of the institutional perspective to the present study • The era of educational expansion, which was accompanied by universalization of secondary education, has brought to the fore the importance of structure of secondary education and the principles and rules of its functioning. • The institutional perspective: • Enables grasping different dimensions of horizontal differentiation of secondary education and how they affect students and their pathways after leaving school. • Provides a basis to acknowledge the effects of secondary school on all aspects of individual’s socialization – cognitive (knowledge and intellectual development), values, identity construction and status expectations. • Allows to reveal that socializing function of educational institutions is carried out not only by the official curriculum, but also by its “charter” and their “hidden curriculum”.

8. horizontal differentiation • A flat horizontal differentiation: refers to “the existence of distinct, institutionally structured educational programs”, which may be different schools of the same type, different school types, or different tracks or streams within schools”. • Asubstantial/qualitative differentiation: pays attention to qualitative differences between programmes and defines horizontal differentiation as “the extent and form of tracking at the secondary educational level” where tracks “differ greatly in the curricula and in the odds that students would continue to the tertiary level” (Müller & Shavit, 1998: 6). Our understanding: • Horizontal differentiation is the existence of institutionally and organizationally differentiated learning environments for acquisition of a given educational level, which are structured as different school types and which differ in the curricula, internal rules and ethos, the future prospects they offer to students, and prestige. • A differentiated education system is not a “flat space”; rather, different types of education create uneven educational environments which influence students’ future.

9. Four main Criteria for outlining internal differentiation in secondary education • Access and selection: Who can enter and on what ground? Is there a special selection procedure and how students are selected? 2) Programme orientation and function: What is the specificity of the educational programme – is it more academic/general or more vocationally oriented, and on what field of study it focuses? What is the main function of the education – to prepare students for work or to prepare them to continue their study? 3) Teachers’ qualification: What is the level of qualification of teachers in different type of schools? 4) Status: Is education offered in public or in private school?

10. Students’ transitions after Secondary education Two main pathways after finishing secondary education: • Continuing education in higher education institution (HEI), • Entering the labour market. Recently there has been a growing literature on: • Students’ transitions after secondary education framed as school-to work transition, commonly understood as a process of entering a stable job (Kogan & Müller, 2003; Kogan et al. 2011; Raffe 2014). • Unemployment, differentiation between finding a significant or temporary job, duration of entry into the first significant job, first job quality and occupational status, first job duration (Shavit & Müller, 1998; Shavit, & Müller, 2000; Kogan et al. 2011).

11. Context Bulgarian Upper-secondary education • Participation – Universal Net enrolment rate for the 2013/2014 school year is of about 83% (NSI). • Social stratification – the highest among all EU countries (World Bank, 2014). • Tracking - at the age of 14 (before the end of their compulsory level of education) into general and vocational schools. • Selectivity – varies across schools • Quality – varies constantly by schools (PISA 2012).

12. six types of secondary education • Non-profiled non-selective: access with no selection and general educational programme; • Vocational selective: access based on selection and vocationally oriented educational programme; • Vocational non-selective: access with no selection and vocationally oriented educational programme. • Semi-profiled selective: access based on selection and general, but partially profiled educational programme; • Semi-profiled non-selective: access with no selection and general, but partially profiled educational programme; • Profiled selective: access based on selection and academically oriented profiled educational programme.

13. Patterns of transitions after secondary education Some facts: • About 70% of the graduates of secondary schools continue their education in HEIs; • 35% of all university students work alongside studying (Eurostudent, 2008); • 38% of secondary schools graduates are NEETs (UNICEF, 2015). We identify five patterns of transition: • Temporary work • Significant work • Attending HEI • Attending HEI and working • Not in education and employment.

14. Hypotheses H1: Graduates’ patterns of transition vary according to the type of secondary education they have finished. H2: The type of secondary education may have an independent influence on graduates’ patterns of transition. H3: The academic achievement has a significant effect on graduates’ patterns of transition. However, the type of secondary education can reshape the effect of students’ academic achievement on their patterns of transition after leaving high school. H4: The type of secondary education moderates the effect of social background on students’ transition after leaving high school.

15. Data, variables & method Bulgarian School-Leavers Survey • Nationally representative survey (2014), • 2,103 individuals aged 15–34 who had left education for the first time in the previous five years and for more than one year, • Response rate – 81%. Limitations • People, aged 20-34, who graduated upper-secondary education, who finished upper-secondary education during the period between 2001 and 2012. The final analytical sample consists of 1,436 observations.

16. Variables & Method Dependent variable: a five-category variable for the patterns of students’ transition after secondary education. Explanatory variables: • type of secondary education programme (six types) • gender (male/female) • ethnicity (ethnic Bulgarian, Roma or others) • parents’ educational status (no higher education background/higher education background) • school status (public/private) • domicile of attendance of secondary school (the capital, big city or small town/village) • academic achievement: Maths’ score upon completion of secondary school Method: multinomial logit regression

17. Descriptive statistics (1)

18. Descriptive statistics (2)

19. Multinomial logit Model 1 (Ref. Attending HEI)Note: Significance: + p<0.10, * p<0.05, ** p<0.01.LRtest(20) - 312.52**, Nagelkerke R2 - 0.196.

20. Multinomial logit Model 2 (Ref. Attending HEI)Note: Significance: + p<0.10, * p<0.05, ** p<0.01.LRtest(28) - 620.23**, Nagelkerke R2 - 0.351

21. Multinomial logit Model 3 (Ref. Attending HEI) Note: Significance: + p<0.10, * p<0.05, ** p<0.01.LRtest(52) - 730.24**, Nagelkerke R2 - 0.399.

22. Predicted probabilities following one of the five patterns after leaving secondary education from the multinomial regression model for people with Math’s grade of 5. Legend 1 "non-profiled non-selective" 2 “vocational non-selective" 3 “vocational selective" 4 “semi-profiled non-selective" 5 "semi-profiled selective" 6 "profiled selective"

23. Average marginal effects (with 95% CIs) of the identified five patterns after leaving secondary education for people with Math’s grade of 5. Legend Ref. cat. "non-profiled non-selective" 2 “vocational non-selective" 3 “vocational selective" 4 “semi-profiled non-selective" 5 "semi-profiled selective" 6 "profiled selective"

24. Predicted probabilities of following the five patterns after leaving secondary education for people with low parents’ education status Legend 1 "non-profiled non-selective" 2 “vocational non-selective" 3 “vocational selective" 4 “semi-profiled non-selective" 5 "semi-profiled selective" 6 "profiled selective"

25. Average marginal effects (with 95% CI) for the five patterns after leaving secondary education for people with low parents’ education status. Legend Ref. cat. "non-profiled non-selective" 2 “vocational non-selective" 3 “vocational selective" 4 “semi-profiled non-selective" 5 "semi-profiled selective" 6 "profiled selective"

26. Discussion and conclusions (1) Taking an institutional perspective the present study focused on: • the influence ofthe horizontal differentiation of secondary education on students’ transitions after high school, • the qualitative dimension of horizontal differentiation, which means that a differentiated secondary education system is not a “flat space”, but contains learning environments, which differ in the curricula, internal rules, the future prospects they offer to their students, and prestige and as a consequence - in the way they influence students’ transitions, • the transition patterns of those of Bulgarians who have attained upper-secondary education in the period 2001-2012 regardless if this was their highest level of education or not. The study demonstrated that taking into account of horizontal differentiation of secondary education is indispensable for understanding students’ patterns of transition after leaving high school in highly stratified educational context as the Bulgarian one.

27. Discussion and conclusions (2) • Graduates’ patterns of transition after completion of secondary education vary according to the type of secondary education they have finished. (H1) • People who studied in vocational non-selective programmes have significantly higher probability of having significant job compared to those who studied in non-profiled non-selective programmes. (H2) • A higher share graduates from selective secondary educational programmes continue their studies in HEIs than graduates from non-selective educational programmes irrespective of their programme orientation. (H2)

28. Discussion and conclusions (3) • The academic achievement has a significant effect on the likelihood of people to follow one or another pattern compared to attending HEI. • Type of secondary school has a moderating effect on the grades. Graduates with the same grade of 5 who studied in selective secondary educational programmes have higher probability to continue their studies than graduates from non-selective secondary educational programmes. This effect is especially salient in the case of significant work and attending HEI. (H3) • The type of secondary education moderates the effect of social background on students’ transition after leaving high school: students from families with low parents’ education status who graduated from more selective type of secondary schools are more likely to attend HEIs than graduates with the same background but who graduated from non-selective secondary educational programmes. (H4)

29. Discussion and conclusions (4) • Our findings demonstrate that the division of general vs vocational education hides certain inequalities and is not sufficient for analysis of students’ patterns after secondary education in stratified secondary education systems such as the Bulgarian one. • The importance of taking into account of additional divisions: • between selective and non-selective programmes & • between non-profiled, semi-profiled and profiled.

30. Discussion and conclusions (5) • There are at least three theoretical reasons why school-leavers who graduated from different types of secondary schools follow different patterns of transition: • socialization effect of teaching process (quality of teachers), • institution’s socialization effect (hidden curriculum), • signal effect (in case of school to work transitions). • A need to go beyond the vision for higher education and employment as homogenous goods. • All recent policy reforms in the Bulgarian school system, more specifically the new Pre-School and School Education Act and the introduction of the dual system, should be discussed taking into account their consequences for horizontal differentiation and stratification of secondary education.

31. Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge the support of the Bulgarian–Swiss Research Programme (grant agreement No. IZEBZO_142969) for the project ‘Social disparities and regional differences in school-to-work transitions in Bulgaria’ (2012–2015) (http://www.schooltowork.bg). The project was co-financed by a grant from Switzerland through the Swiss Contribution to the Enlarged European Union and from the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science.

32. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION! Contact details: pepka7@gmail.com & petya.ilievat@gmail.com