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Project
Diverging pathways: a longitudinal study of the role of the school in differentially shaping the learning trajectories of native and Turkish adolescents in Flanders.
My doctoral project addresses one of the major challenges of Western European societies, namely the achievement gap between minority and non-minority youth. This study aims at enhancing our understanding of why, on average, minority pupils are less successful in school than majority group youngsters. For this purpose, data from the CILS4EU project - a unique longitudinal and cross-national survey among secondary school students, as well as their parents and teachers -, and the Flemish LeuvenCILS data are used.
The project focuses specifically on therole of the school level context in explaining the ethnic gap in educational achievement. While in the past some research has been carried out on the influence of school size, sector (private/public) and ethnic and socio-economic composition, findings are often contradictory and little is known about relevant processes connecting school factors to individual outcomes. CILS4EU and LeuvenCILS panel data allows to find out how various processes at the individual, class group and school level channel or adjust the effect of these classical school characteristics on the development of schooling paths. Furthermore, we will look at the influence and interplay of teachers, school teams and principal characteristics which have scarcely been considered in large-scale quantitative research.
The fact that the comparative data from the CILS4EU project is used (including information from the Netherlands, Sweden, England and Germany) enables me to go beyond the Flemish case and investigate differences between educational systems and their relation to the gap in school achievement between native and immigrant children. Specific attention will be paid to school trajectories of children of Turkish immigrants, which are present in all these countries.
The project focuses specifically on therole of the school level context in explaining the ethnic gap in educational achievement. While in the past some research has been carried out on the influence of school size, sector (private/public) and ethnic and socio-economic composition, findings are often contradictory and little is known about relevant processes connecting school factors to individual outcomes. CILS4EU and LeuvenCILS panel data allows to find out how various processes at the individual, class group and school level channel or adjust the effect of these classical school characteristics on the development of schooling paths. Furthermore, we will look at the influence and interplay of teachers, school teams and principal characteristics which have scarcely been considered in large-scale quantitative research.
The fact that the comparative data from the CILS4EU project is used (including information from the Netherlands, Sweden, England and Germany) enables me to go beyond the Flemish case and investigate differences between educational systems and their relation to the gap in school achievement between native and immigrant children. Specific attention will be paid to school trajectories of children of Turkish immigrants, which are present in all these countries.
Date:1 Oct 2011 → 20 Mar 2017
Keywords:Ethnic gap, Teacher effects, School effectiveness, Longitudinal, Educational inequalities, Educational achievement
Disciplines:Applied sociology, Policy and administration, Social psychology, Social stratification, Social theory and sociological methods, Sociology of life course, family and health, Other sociology and anthropology, Other social sciences
Project type:PhD project