The Role of Social Resources for the Explanation of Ethnic Educational Inequalities in the German School System

Against the background of a newly risen debate about educational inequality the dissertation project examines ethnic inequalities in the German educational system. For this purpose native pupils are compared with pupils of immigrant background, both Turkish and of one of the countries of the former Soviet Union (ethnic German repatriates). These two ethnic groups are especially adequate for the analyses, because they are the two largest immigrant groups in Germany and they differ considerably with respect to educational success and other important aspects. Moreover, up to now there exist hardly any empirical analyses concerning ethnic German repatriates. Based on rational choice approaches it is assumed, that family endowment with resources (which are partly host country specific) is crucial for the educational success of children and adolescents. In this project the focus will be on the role social resources play. Furthermore, it is expected that besides differences in educational performance, educational decisions at important transition points in the educational system lead to ethnic inequalities. In a nutshell the dissertation project intends to answer the question in how far educational inequality between ethnic groups can be attributed to differences in the endowment with social resources and in how far these resources have an impact on the performance of pupils (primary effects) and the transition decisions (secondary effects).