Status Attainment Model Research Articles

Unpacking the Gap: Socioeconomic Background and the Stratification of College Applications in the United States

While a substantial body of work has shown that higher-SES students tend to apply to more selective colleges than their lower-SES counterparts, we know relatively less about why students differ in their application behavior. In this study, we draw upon a sociological approach to educational stratification to unpack the SES-based gap in college application selectivity. Using data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009, we examine the contribution of theoretical factors to the class-based gap in the selectivity of college applications. Namely, from the rational action model we estimate the contribution of performance differentials and choice differentials, while from the status attainment model we look at the level and type of educational expectations as well as the number of applications submitted. Through a series of Heckman selection models, as well as a Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition analysis, we can explain 85% of the gap in college application selectivity between students in the top and bottom SES quintiles. In turn, we estimate that 60% of this explained portion is due to rational action mechanisms such as grades and test scores while 35% is due to status attainment mechanisms. Finally, we reveal that SES moderates the relationship between type of expectations and application selectivity. We find that the payoff to higher expectations (in terms of selective applications) disproportionately accrues to higher-SES students.

Staying on track in higher secondary education in Flanders (Belgium). Mechanisms explaining social inequality in educational choice

ABSTRACT This article analyses the mechanisms that contribute to differences in educational choice in the transition from the second to the third stage of secondary education in Flanders, a highly tracked educational system. The study programme chosen in the eleventh grade, besides being quite predictable from the educational position in the tenth grade and school performance, is also affected by social class, ethnic background and gender. Using data gathered from pupils, their parents and their teachers, this study (N = 4389) tests a broad range of factors put forward by rational action theory, cultural reproduction theory and the Wisconsin status attainment model. As proposed by rational action theory, relative risk aversion affects educational choice. However, it does not explain the SES effect. Pupils’ academic self-esteem and their time perspective do have some potential to explain SES differentials in educational choice, as hypothesised by rational action theorists, and as can be expected from cultural explanations for educational inequality as well. In addition, expectations of significant others (parents, as well as teachers) are important predictors for subsequent educational choice and explain part of SES differences. Finally, classic cultural indicators of the parental home do not seem to affect educational choice beyond their effects on performance.

Is Migration a Way Out from Ascription? The Status Attainment Process of Romanians in Western Europe

This article assesses the role of social origin for Romanian migrants in Western Europe, compared to stayers in their origin country. We propose a novel theoretical model of status attainment to account for the migration process, including the self-selection to migration on the basis of individual characteristics and the effect of the area/context on social mobility. Our sample (elaborated from the EUCROSS 2012 survey) includes 1772 working-age Romanian citizens who completed their education in Romania. Our results show that self-selection played a role in not only the Romanians’ decision to migrate but also the choice of destination (either Southern Europe or Central-Northern Europe), being migrants in Southern Europe negatively self-selected with respect to both social origin (men) and education (both men and, especially, women). We also found that the disadvantage of Romanian migrants (measured through the International Socio-Economic Index), compared to stayers, was reinforced by a higher influence of social origin for women, who, in addition, got even lower returns to education abroad. Contrary to the expectations of both academic scholars and the institutions supporting EU free movement, migration to Western Europe (at least in the case of Romanians) was not a way out, but rather reinforced ascription.

Nordic paradox in action: The complicated relation between social mobility and health inequalities in an international comparative study.

Socio-economic inequalities originate from several channels, one of which is family origins, with clear effects on people's health. This paper aims to evaluate the role played by social mobility in determining health inequalities, relying on Blau and Duncan's status attainment model and focusing specifically on two moments of social reproduction of inequalities: one inter-generational, based on the transmission of resources from the family of origin, the other intra-generational, related to the capitalisation of economic resources to maximise well-being. Multi-group models of structural equations were used to examine the direct and indirect effects of parental cultural background, education and economic conditions of respondents on self-perceived health in 28 countries, relying on the European Social Survey (N=38,879). Overall, the results confirmed the presence of an inter-generational transmission of social and health status. Different models of transmission of health inequalities emerged among the countries considered. Countries characterised by a social democratic welfare regime showed higher social mobility and fewer health inequalities, although in correspondence with a prominent role of economic factors in determining health conditions. On the other hand, in countries where social mobility is lower, health inequalities are more pronounced, yet driven by factors others than economics, such as socio-cultural origins. The presence of a higher economic-health gradient in social democratic countries - notwithstanding their egalitarian and universal welfare policies - provides support for the existence of a Nordic paradox in relation to health inequalities.

Social mobility, adolescents’ psycho-social dispositions, and parenting

Psycho-social dispositions and parental influence are central in early status attainment models. We apply the Social Structure and Personality framework to investigate the contributions of adolescents’ psycho-social dispositions to social mobility, and then the contributions of parents’ socioeconomic status (SES) and parenting to adolescents’ psycho-social dispositions. The Kaplan Longitudinal and Multigenerational Study includes data on two generations of respondents: the first-generation of respondents was observed from seventh grade in 1971 until midlife, and the second-generation, their children, was observed from adolescence to young adulthood. We find that upward social mobility is inhibited by poor psycho-social dispositions, particularly by negative self-feelings. SES, in turn, also affects psycho-social dispositions. Family income is more relevant (i.e., variance explained) than parental education for adolescents’ locus of control, while parental education is more relevant for adolescents’ negative self-feelings. Finally, our findings indicate that parenting can disrupt the cycle of social reproduction, with lower SES adolescents exhibiting lower levels of negative self-feelings if their parents are more attached or less authoritarian.

The intergenerational social mobility of internationally mobile students: The status attainment of returnees from abroad compared with non‐returnees

AbstractThe well‐researched positive selectivity of international student mobility (ISM) participants with regard to parental education and social class identifies ISM as a strategy of distinction in times of a massification of tertiary education. Research has noted that returnees profit from the distinction their education gives them in the local labour market. However, studies from several countries suggest that about half of international students do not return home after graduation. How is social status transferred in these cases? The occupational statuses of ISM returnees and non‐returnees do not differ significantly. Blau and Duncan's status attainment model for returnees finds higher similarity between the occupational status of graduates and their fathers as well as a higher explained variance when compared with the model for non‐returnees. This suggests that some capitals of a graduate's family are not internationally transferable and complicates the notion of ISM as a strategy of intergenerational transfer of social status.

Adolescents’ relative position in school and educational attainment: The mediating role of educational expectations

This study examines whether and how adolescents' relative deprivation in school is associated with their years of education by incorporating the social comparison perspective into the Wisconsin status attainment model. Using Waves 1, 2, and 4 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), this study finds that adolescents who are positioned at the bottom of the economic hierarchy in school are likely to have up to one less year of education, compared to their counterparts positioned at the top of the hierarchy, when holding other variables constant. Also, by using causal mediation analyses, I find that educational expectations account for more than 20% of the relationship between adolescents' relative deprivation and educational attainment. The sensitivity analyses are conducted to examine how robust the main findings are to the violation of the assumption used in this study. These results provide evidence showing that adolescents’ educational outcomes do not only depend on their material resources but also on their relative standing in the economic hierarchy.

The forgotten role of teachers in students’ educational aspirations. School composition effects and the buffering capacity of teachers’ expectations culture

Research on students’ aspirations, an important predictor of educational attainment, is mostly focused on individual-level determinants, reflecting the classical status attainment model. Studies have suggested a school composition effect, but ignore school processes. Inspired by new insights in school effects research looking at teachers’ expectations at the school level, we investigate the mediating and moderating role of teachability culture in the relationship between SES composition and aspirations. Multilevel analyses of data (2013–2014) from 2.354 students and 502 teachers across 30 Flemish secondary schools show that teachers’ shared expectations can compensate for the detrimental effects of low SES composition on aspirations.

Social Influence or Rational Choice? Two Models and Their Contribution to Explaining Class Differentials in Student Educational Aspirations

AbstractBoth the Wisconsin model of status attainment (WIM) and rational choice theory (RCT) indicate that social class differentials in student educational aspirations are partially determined by academic performance. Conditional on performance, the WIM predicts that social influence mechanisms explain the remaining class differentials, whereas RCT maintains that rational calculus factors provide the explanation. Both theories have rarely been compared directly using large-scale empirical data. Moreover, the appropriateness of these models has been questioned for highly stratified and selective educational systems such as Germany’s. In this article, we analyse the extent to which the WIM and RCT can explain the relationship between students’ social class origins and their educational aspirations. We use data from the National Educational Panel Study and analysed the aspirations of 4,896 ninth-graders in German schools along with data about their school performance, social class positions, social influences, and rational choice factors. Our mixed logit models largely confirm that both social influences and rational choice factors mediate class differentials. Five factors contribute the most: parents’ expectations, friends’ aspirations, the motive of status maintenance, costs, and perceived probability of success. This research confirms that both the WIM and RCT can each independently explain aspirations and class differentials in aspirations.

Class and ambition in the status attainment process: A Spanish replication.

There are two principal theoretical schools that seek to explain status outcomes in early adulthood: those focusing on intergenerational transmission of class privilege and those emphasizing individual characteristics, particularly ambition. The first may be called the structuralist school and the second the psycho-social school, following the Wisconsin Model of Status Attainment. A second structuralist perspective, Segmented Assimilation, highlights transmission of socio-economic status across immigrant generations, but emphasizes the positive role of co-ethnic resources for upward mobility and preventing downward assimilation. We examine these alternative predictions using a large longitudinal sample of youths in Spain that includes both children of native parentage and children of immigrants. Spain possesses characteristics that make it uniquely suitable to examine these predictions. Results show that both family socio-economic status and ambition, measured by adolescent educational aspirations and expectations, play important roles in educational and occupational attainment, but the influence of family status persists even after controlling for ambition. The influence of co-ethnic nationalities disappears after these controls, except among Chinese and Filipino youths, a result consistent with segmented assimilation. Predictive models of status attainment yield identical results for children of immigrants and children of natives, indicating that in Spain, they have become part of a common youth universe. Theoretical and practical implications of the analysis are discussed.

Increased educational attainment among U.S. mothers and their children’s academic expectations

Existing research provides strong evidence that children with more educated parents have higher academic expectations for themselves, but has yet to consider how an increase in the education of lower educated mothers might alter the expectations of their children. In light of the historic increase in U.S. mothers’ pursuit of additional education, this study investigates this timely question using data from a nationally representative, intergenerational sample of U.S. children and mothers participating in the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (nmothers=3265; nchildren=8027). Combining random and fixed effects procedures, the findings revealed that an increase in mothers’ educational attainment is linked to an increase in their children’s expectations to earn a Bachelor’s degree. Increased maternal education did not, however, buffer against the risk that children will downgrade these expectations upon approaching the end of high school. These results have theoretical importance to traditional models of status attainment, which typically view parental education as a stable feature of family background; extend a small but burgeoning literature that explores whether and why increased maternal education improves the mobility prospects of their children; and speak to current two-generation policy approaches that aim to leverage trends in mothers education to reduce inequality for future generations.

Socialinis mobilumas posocialistinėse šalyse: tyrimų būklė ir aktualios problemos

Straipsnio tikslas yra analitinė socialinio mobilumo posocialistinėse šalyse tyrimų apžvalga. Pirmame skirsnyje pristatomos socialinio mobilumo sąvokos ir tyrimų kryptys, aprašomi skirtingais socialinės struktūros modeliais grįsti socialinio mobilumo matavimo būdai. Antrame skirsnyje nušviečiami socialistinio laikotarpio socialinio mobilumo tyrimų bruožai. Toliau socialinio mobilumo tyrimai grupuojami pagal naudojamus klasinius ir neklasinius socialinės struktūros modelius. Trečiame skirsnyje analizuojami tarpklasinio socialinio mobilumo tyrimai, pabrėžiant juose naudojamas klasių schemas bei absoliutaus ir santykinio socialinio mobilumo skyrimo reikalingumą. Ketvirtoje straipsnio dalyje pristatomi tyrimai, besiremiantys statuso pasiekimo modeliu, išryškinant šių tyrimų metodologijos ypatumus ir jų ribotumus. Rečiau pasitaikančios socialinio mobilumo rūšies – subjektyvaus socialinio mobilumo – tyrimai aprašomi penktame skirsnyje. Paskutinėje straipsnio dalyje apžvelgiama socialinio mobilumo tyrimų situacija Lietuvoje, pristatomi socialinio mobilumo tyrimai socialistinėje ir posocialistinėje Lietuvoje.

Familial Transmission of Educational Plans and the Academic Self-Concept: A Three-Generation Longitudinal Study.

This research investigates the social reproduction of inequality by drawing on prospective longitudinal data from three generations of Youth Development Study respondents. It examines intergenerational influence on the relatively unexplored academic self-concept as well as educational plans, a critical component of the status attainment model. A structural equation model, based on 422 3-generation triads, finds evidence that the sources giving rise to the development of children's (Generation 3) achievement orientations do not only result from parental (G2) contemporaneous influence. Prior influences implicate grandparent (G1) educational attainment and income, grandparental expectations for the G2 adolescent, the G2 academic self-concept and educational plans measured more than twenty years earlier (in G2's adolescence), and G2 educational attainment. A familial culture emphasizing academic self-confidence and high educational expectations may be an important component of "family capital" that supports educational attainment and contributes to the maintenance of social class position in each successive generation.

Institutional constraints and the translation of college aspirations into intentions—Evidence from a factorial survey

This article examines under which conditions high school students’ college aspirations (unconstrained wishes) translate into (constrained) college intentions. Drawing on the Wisconsin model of status attainment and sociological rational choice theory, it is argued that—while educational aspirations are mainly the result of socialization processes within families and schools—educational intentions are constrained by institutional opportunities and barriers emerging from the higher education system, which might influence students from different social backgrounds in different ways. The focus lies on four institutional characteristics of German higher education institutions—namely geographical distance, reputation, selection procedures and the information provided by colleges. Methodologically, I draw on a factorial survey on application intentions for college programs that is integrated in a survey of Berlin high school students who indicated an aspiration to attend college one year before graduating. The findings suggest that distance from home is an especially strong constraint on college application intentions. The effects of the institutional dimensions, however, rarely differ for students from different social backgrounds. Nevertheless, social background differences can be observed regarding the overall strength of application intentions indicating that socially advantaged students feel generally less constrained by the institutional characteristics presented to them. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Accounting for structural and exchange mobility in models of status attainment: Social fluidity in five European countries

This paper proposes a new method to distinguish structural from exchange mobility in status attainment models with interval endogenous variables. In order to measure structural mobility, the paper proposes to trace occupational and educational changes across generations using information provided by children about their fathers. The validity of the method is assessed by comparing the effects of father’s socio-economic status and education on son’s status and educational attainments, net of occupational upgrading and educational expansion, in five European countries: Britain, Denmark, Germany, Norway, and Spain, using data from the 2005 EU-SILC survey. The results show that the effect of father’s on son’s ISEI weakens greatly in all countries after considering occupational upgrading, and that much of father’s influence over sons occurs by directing them towards occupations with good economic prospects. Useful extensions to the method are discussed in the conclusions.

Status attainment as a competitive process : a theoretical and empirical study on the implications of Boudon's status attainment Model

The typical status attainment approach assumes a purely individual-level process, disregarding that individuals are interdependent because status positions are scarce. In line with arguments by Thurow [1975] and Coleman [1987] we reanalyze and extend Boudon's [1974] model in which status attainment is modeled as a competitive process. We use computer simulations to derive testable predictions from this model under different circumstances. In line with previous studies, we find that Boudon's assertion that mobility is not affected by educational inequality does not hold in all circumstances. Furthermore, we extend Boudon's model by allowing the distribution of jobs to shift upwards (in line with modernization arguments), and find that this has complex and counterintuitive effects on status inequality. We test the hypotheses that we derive from the simulation on comparative data. Although not all hypotheses are supported, the results do lend support to the notion that status attainment is indeed a competitive process.Copyright © 2013 by Societa editrice il Mulino,Bologna.

Unequal academic achievement in high school: the mediating roles of concerted cultivation and close friends

Building from the classic Wisconsin model of status attainment, this study examines whether a specific style of parenting, concerted cultivation, and a close friend’s school-related attitudes and behaviors mediate the relationship between a family’s socioeconomic status and their child’s academic achievement in the United States. Using a recursive path model on nationally representative panel data of high school students (N = 10,350), the results confirm a direct association between socioeconomic status and concerted cultivation. In addition, concerted cultivation and close friends are shown to mediate the relationship between a family’s socioeconomic status and their child’s academic achievement.

The Success Frame and Achievement Paradox: The Costs and Consequences for Asian Americans

The status attainment model highlights the role of family socioeconomic status (SES) in the intergenerational reproduction of educational attainment; however, the model falls short in predicting the educational outcomes of the children of Asian immigrants, whose attainment exceeds that which would have been predicted based on family SES alone. On the other hand, the cultural capital model gives primacy to the role of middle-class cultural capital in reproducing advantage, but neglects contextual factors outside the family. We fill a theoretical and empirical niche by introducing a model of cultural frames to explain how the children of immigrants whose families exhibit low SES and lack middle-class cultural capital attain exceptional educational outcomes. Based on in-depth interviews with adult children of Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants randomly drawn from the survey of Immigration and Intergenerational Mobility in Metropolitan Los Angeles, we show that Chinese and Vietnamese immigrant parents and their children use ethnicity as a resource to construct and support a strict “success frame” that helps the poor and working class override their disadvantages. However, there are unintended consequences to adopting such a strict success frame: those who do not meet its exacting tenets feel like ethnic outliers, and as a result, they distance themselves from coethnics and from their ethnic identities because they link achievement with ethnicity. We conclude by underscoring the benefits of decoupling race/ethnicity and achievement for all groups.

De werking van sociaal kapitaal in het statusverwervingsproces in Nederland

This study addresses the question what role social capital plays in the status attainment process of men in the Netherlands in 2000: how important is social capital in the transfer of status from one generation to the next? We derive hypotheses by integrating the social resources theory in the classic status attainment model. To test these hypotheses we perform structural equation modeling on data from the Survey of the Social Networks of the Dutch (SSND). The most important result is that, although social capital is inherited and has a significant effect on one’s status, it plays a minor role in the intergenerational transmission of status. A reason is that the amount of social capital depends mostly on an individual’s educational level, and less so on family background. We further find that social capital actually needs to be activated in order to be of use and only about 30% of the men do so. Moreover, one benefits only from activating social capital if the mobilized person is of high status. Lastly, the role of the tie strength with the mobilized person is not as expected and deserves further attention together with others aspects of the network embeddedness of social capital.

Measuring and Modelling Level of Education in European Societies

We present two methods to improve the comparative measurement of level of education. The first method derives optimal scale scores for all country-specific education categories distinguished in the European Social Survey Round 1-4 (ESS R1-R4). This results in a novel continuous comparative education measure that we label ISLED: the International Standard Level of Education. The second method further improves measurement quality by modelling level of education as a true-score latent variable that is reflected in two observed indicators. In particular, we combine ISLED and a common- denominator harmonization based on the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), respectively, with an independently collected duration measure. Embedded in an extended intergenerational status attainment model, this allows us to compare the measurement quality of ISLED with that of two often used comparative education measures: duration and ESS's five-category harmonized qualification indicator. ISLED outperforms both by some margin, but still attenuates measurement by 5 per cent. Full disattenuation can, however, be achieved by means of latent variable modelling, as this brings about correction of all (random) measurement error.