Project Strive-Up
Social advancement or status preservation? Status aspirations and educational decisions according to social origin and migration background
The project examines the ideas parents of 6-10 year old children have about their child’s future social status (desire to maintain status vs. desire for upward mobility). We analyse to what extent the desire to maintain status vs. the desire for upward mobility differs according to socio-economic status (SES) and migration background, and what role this desire for status plays in parents’ educational aspirations and in the educational decisions made by families.
We want to find out how parents of 6-10 year old children think about their children’s future, especially in relation to their social status. We are interested in two questions: do parents want their children to maintain their social status or do they want their children to move up the social ladder? Our aim is to investigate whether these wishes are related to the social and economic background (SES) and possible migrant background of the parents. We also want to find out whether these status aspirations have an impact on parents’ educational goals and on the educational choices they make for their children.
To do this, we develop and test new ways of measuring aspirations. We create special questionnaires and test them carefully before using them in a large-scale survey. In this survey, we interview the parents of 6-10 year old children to find out more about their status aspirations and educational goals. In addition, we analyse existing data from the National Educational Panel Study to examine how parents’ status aspirations change over time and what impact they have.
Selected publications
Becker, B., Gresch, C., & Zimmermann, T. (2023). Are They Still Aiming High? The Development of Educational Aspirations of Lower Secondary School Students With Immigrant Backgrounds in Germany. International Migration Review, 57(3), 1216-1248. https://doi.org/10.1177/01979183221112404
Becker, B. (2018). Bildungsaspirationen von Eltern mit 3- bis 6-jährigen Kindern: Sind die Wünsche und Erwartungen zur Schulkarriere der Kinder von Anfang an sozial stratifiziert? Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung und Sozialisation, 38(3), 284-301. https://doi.org/10.3262/ZSE1803284
Zimmermann, T. (2020). Social Influence or Rational Choice? Two Models and Their Contribution to Explaining Class Differentials in Student Educational Aspirations. European Sociological Review, 36(1), 65-81. https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcz054