TY - JOUR

T1 - Access to Baccalaureate School in Switzerland

T2 - Regional Variance of Institutional Conditions and Its Consequences for Educational Inequalities

AU - Leemann, Regula Julia

AU - Brändli, Andrea Pfeifer

AU - Imdorf, Christian

N1 - Funding Information: This paper is part of the project “Governance of Transitions in the Swiss Education System. A Study on the Political Regulation of Moving from Primary to Lower‐Secondary and from Lower‐Secondary to Upper‐Secondary Education (GovTrans)”, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF‐10001A_188906) 7/2020–6/2024.

PY - 2022/3

Y1 - 2022/3

N2 - In Switzerland, baccalaureate school is still considered to be the royal road to a university education and the elite path for the social reproduction of the upper class. However, cantonal enrollment to baccalaureate school varies widely due to Swiss federalism. There is a recurring debate on whether access to baccalaureate school is fair and equal among pupils who live in different cantons and who are of different social origin. This paper aims to analyze how the institutional conditions of cantons and municipalities impact a pupil’s probability of entering baccalaureate school and how the cantonal provisioning of places in baccalaureate school affects social inequality of access. For our theoretical foundation, we combine concepts of neo-institutionalism with mechanisms of social reproduction in education. Empirically, we analyze national longitudinal register data to model educational transitions from compulsory to baccalaureate school by using logistic regression models. Our results show that institutional structures at the cantonal and municipal levels influence the probability of transition beyond individual pupils’ characteristics. The degree of inequality varies between cantons, depending on the supply of baccalaureate school places. Inequality first increases with an increasing number of places (the scissors effect) and decreases only after the demand of more privileged families for places at baccalaureate school is saturated.

AB - In Switzerland, baccalaureate school is still considered to be the royal road to a university education and the elite path for the social reproduction of the upper class. However, cantonal enrollment to baccalaureate school varies widely due to Swiss federalism. There is a recurring debate on whether access to baccalaureate school is fair and equal among pupils who live in different cantons and who are of different social origin. This paper aims to analyze how the institutional conditions of cantons and municipalities impact a pupil’s probability of entering baccalaureate school and how the cantonal provisioning of places in baccalaureate school affects social inequality of access. For our theoretical foundation, we combine concepts of neo-institutionalism with mechanisms of social reproduction in education. Empirically, we analyze national longitudinal register data to model educational transitions from compulsory to baccalaureate school by using logistic regression models. Our results show that institutional structures at the cantonal and municipal levels influence the probability of transition beyond individual pupils’ characteristics. The degree of inequality varies between cantons, depending on the supply of baccalaureate school places. Inequality first increases with an increasing number of places (the scissors effect) and decreases only after the demand of more privileged families for places at baccalaureate school is saturated.

KW - baccalaureate school

KW - educational federalism

KW - educational inequalities

KW - educational provision

KW - educational structures

KW - educational transition

KW - regional variance

KW - Switzerland

KW - upper‐secondary education

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85123782615&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3390/educsci12030213

DO - 10.3390/educsci12030213

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85123782615

VL - 12

JO - Education Sciences

JF - Education Sciences

SN - 2227-7102

IS - 3

M1 - 213

ER -