ABSTRACT

Recent research has increasingly been studying the long-lasting effects of secondary education structures and processes on higher education (HE) outcomes. While the influence of socioeconomic composition on higher education enrolment is established, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We posit that the composition effect partially runs through the educational expectations of the students’ peers at school. By considering shared post-secondary expectations among students within a school – or, peer expectation culture – we transcend the dominant individual approach to expectations. Additionally, we go beyond the supposed positive (i.e. normative) effects of peers on HE enrolment, by considering the negative effects of having ambitious peers on HE enrolment resulting from comparative group processes. Logistic multilevel analyses of longitudinal data (2013–2019) from 1250 students across 30 Flemish high schools showed that socio-economic status (SES) composition effects on HE outcomes were mediated by expectation culture. Students attending schools with high expectation cultures were more likely to attend HE in general, and to attend university over other HE institutes compared to students in schools with low expectation cultures. The results suggest normative effects of peers on both outcomes, while comparative processes were only found for the choice of institution. This study underscores the long-term consequences of both individual and school-level expectations in secondary education and calls for including comparative reference group effects in studies on educational decision-making.

摘要

最近的研究越来越多地研究中等教育结构和过程对高等教育 (HE) 成果的长期影响。虽然社会经济构成对高等教育入学率的影响已经确定，但其潜在机制仍不清楚。我们假设作文效应部分贯穿了学生在校同龄人的教育期望。通过考虑学校内学生之间共享的中学后期望——或同伴期望文化——我们超越了主导的个人期望方法。此外，我们超越了同龄人对 HE 入学率的假定积极（即规范）影响，考虑了具有雄心壮志的同龄人对 HE 入学率的负面影响，这些负面影响来自比较组过程。对来自 30 所佛兰芒高中的 1250 名学生的纵向数据（2013-2019 年）进行的逻辑多层次分析表明，社会经济地位 (SES) 构成对 HE 结果的影响是由期望文化介导的。与期望文化低的学校的学生相比，在文化期望高的学校就读的学生总体上更有可能就读高等教育，并且比其他高等教育机构更容易上大学。结果表明同龄人对两种结果的规范影响，而比较过程仅针对机构的选择。本研究强调了中等教育中个人和学校层面期望的长期后果，并呼吁在教育决策研究中纳入比较参照组效应。