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The relatively poor average performance of German students on the recent PISA international evaluations of 15- and 16-year-olds' literary skills (2000) and mathematical skills (2003) and the wide variation in performance, with low-income students scoring particularly poorly, have led to calls for reforms of the German educational system. Understanding why students in some classrooms learn more than do those in other classrooms is an important first step in considering alternative reform strategies. Possible explanations include differences in teacher quality, class sizes and peer groups, and also differences among the types of secondary schools that parents select for their children. This paper illustrates a set of techniques that are useful in examining the roles these factors play in predicting why, net of family background and prior achievement, the average achievement of children in some classrooms is much higher than that of children in other classrooms. We illustrate the use of these techniques with a dataset from Bogotá, Colombia, that has two attractive properties. First, some teachers teach multiple classes of students. Second, students are enrolled in schools in two sectors (public and private). Application of the techniques described in this paper could shed light on the reasons why the average academic achievement of German students attending some schools is much higher than that of German students attending other schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper analyses the duration of child poverty in Germany. Observing the entire income history from the individuals' birth to their coming of age at age 18, we are able to analyse dynamics in and out of poverty for the entire population of children, whether they become poor at least once or not. Using duration models, we find that household composition, most importantly single parenthood, and the labour market status as well as level of education of the household head are the main driving forces behind exit from and re-entry into poverty and thus determine the (long-term) experience of poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden nachträgliche Wechsel von Jugendlichen zu Schulformen, die die Hochschulreife ermöglichen, mittels SOEP-Daten untersucht. Dabei werden auch mögliche Unterschiede zwischen den Bundesländern Bayern, Baden-Württemberg, Niedersachsen und Nordrhein-Westfalen, die unterschiedlich offene Schulstrukturen aufweisen, geprüft. Die zentrale Frage ist, ob solche Aufstiegsprozesse zu einer Veränderung von Bildungsungleichheiten, die zu Beginn der Sekundarstufe I bestehen, beitragen und ob es darin Unterschiede zwischen den untersuchten Bundesländern gibt. Zur Untersuchung der Bildungsungleichheiten wird zwischen einer konditionalen und unkonditionalen Analyseperspektive unterschieden. Die empirischen Befunde zeigen, dass es im Bildungsverlauf nicht zu einer Verstärkung von sozialen Herkunftseffekten kommt und dass Jugendliche mit Migrationshintergrund ihre Nachteile tendenziell abbauen können. Die Bundesländer unterscheiden sich nur unwesentlich in den Herkunftseffekten; in Baden-Württemberg scheinen jedoch Jugendliche aus Familien mit niedriger Bildung bessere Aufstiegsmöglichkeiten zu haben als in den anderen untersuchten Bundesländern. Based on SOEP (German Socio-Economic Panel) data this paper analyzes late student transfers to school types that lead to a university entrance qualification. In addition, possible variations between the states of Bavaria, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Lower Saxony, and North Rhine-Westphalia, which differ in the openness of their school structures, are examined. The central questions are whether greater educational opportunity leads to a lessening of the educational inequalities which were found to exist for these students at the beginning of secondary school and whether the school systems of the four states differ in this regard. The analysis of educational inequalities distinguishes between a conditional and an unconditional perspective. The empirical results show that there is no strengthening of the effects of social origin during the students' school careers. In fact, young people with a migration background tend to be able to reduce their disadvantages. Overall, the four states differ only marginally with respect to origin effects. However, in general, young people in Baden-Wuerttemberg seem to enjoy better advancement opportunities than in the other states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Bibliothek Forschung und Praxis is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper shows an empirical analysis of regional returns to education in Germany. Therefore the returns to education are estimated for Germany as a whole and for the eastern and western part seperately. Additionally the analysis examines the returns for each federal state. For the estimations it is necessary to identify an efficient method and the best estimable model. It can be shown that the Three-Stage-Least-Squares-method yields the best results. For Germany the regression shows an average return for an additional year of education of about 10 %. By comparing the eastern and western part, it can be shown that in the east german states - the New Länder - employees get a much higher return. A further separation of states verifies the heterogeneities of the regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper presents the results of an empirical study on phrasal verbs with to come, to give, to go, to get, and to take and up, down, out as complements. Presuming that in many instances the overall meaning of PVs cannot be adequately inferred from the senses of their constituent parts (e.g., to make up for ⇒ to compensate), it is hypothesized that raising awareness for the underlying conceptual motivation of the verbs and the particles helps learners study PVs more efficiently. A quasi-experimental field study including a pre-/post-test design with both an experimental group (EG) and a control group (CG) was conducted in an authentic secondary school context in Germany. The participants were higher track ninth graders with L1 German. The corpus of PVs, the time of instruction (3 × 45 minutes) and the text material the students worked with were identical over both groups. Yet, only in the EG the students worked on the conceptual motivations of PVs. Different theoretical strands were used as a resource to develop CL-inspired teaching material (Mahpeykar and Tyler 2014; Rudzka-Ostyn 2003; Tyler and Evans 2003). The studies investigated a) the effect of CL-methods on retention and b) the transfer of CL insights to novel PVs. With regard to retention, the study could not statistically prove an advantage for the EG. However, statistical evidence was found that the EG outperformed the CG significantly on transfer ( p < .05). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Monatsschrift fuer Kriminologie und Strafrechtsreform is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper discusses evaluations of distributive justice in two different situations. Focal point is the so-called equity axiom which lies at the heart of Rawls' second principle of justice, the maximin rule. Our investigation which was run at a German university spans over a period of fifteen years. It seems to us that consideration for the worst-off (group) in society has become considerably weaker over the years. This and related observations are tested by using a probit model including several demographic characteristics of the probands. The supposed time trend proves to be statistically robust. Several reasons for this observation are given. Obviously, depending on the underlying context, evaluations are to some degree influenced by current topics, including the ongoing discussion about the German educational system as well as about recent economic problems. We also briefly refer to findings that we obtained in the Baltics and in Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a reply of the article author to the comments made by several social scientists on his paper on various issues related to the classical utopia concept. Explanation of the present conditions of the utopia discussion in the Federal Republic of Germany; Issues related to utopian thinking; Information on the tasks of fathering, food and education in the utopian society.

Copyright of Soziale Systeme is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The career mobility model suggests that overeducated workers are more prone to take up on-the-job training, to climb up the career ladder, or to leave to professions more suitable to their educational level. Our empirical analysis, using the German SOEP, confirms this theory for Germany. Comparing adequately qualified and overqualified workers in jobs that require the same level of formal qualification indicates that overeducated workers have a higher probability to take up on-the-job training and have a higher probability to move to jobs that better match their educational level. Furthermore, we find that overeducated workers experience higher wage growth than their adequately educated colleagues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide a concise introduction to a household-panel data infrastructure that provides the international research community with longitudinal data of private households in Germany since 1984: the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). We demonstrate the comparative strength of the SOEP data in answering economically-relevant questions by highlighting its diverse and impactful applications throughout the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizen science is a growing approach in science and the opportunities of new technologies and learning are considered more and more. We give an overview of the current practice of mobile learning in Germany by conducting an explorative survey among environmental citizen science projects using mobile apps. This study supports the idea that education is relevant in citizen science, and apps affect the learning experience of participants. However, several obstacles were identified that need to be considered, to be able to fully exploit the benefits of mobile learning in citizen science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We investigate the hypothesis of failed integration and low social mobility of immigrants. An intergenerational assimilation model is tested empirically on household survey data and validated against registry data provided by the Italian Embassy in Germany. Although we confirm substantial disparities between educational achievements of immigrants and natives, we find that the children of Italian immigrants exhibit high intergenerational mobility and no less opportunity than natives to achieve high schooling degrees. These findings suggest a rejection of the failed assimilation hypothesis. Additionally, we evaluate different patterns by time of arrival, Italian region of origin and language spoken at home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the impact of after-school center-based care on the development of primary school-aged children? Answering this question is challenging due to non-random selection of children into after-school center-based care. We tackle this challenge using detailed data of the German Child Panel and employing a value-added method. While we do not find significant effects on average, our analysis provides evidence for beneficial returns to after-school center-based care attendance for more disadvantaged children. To be more precise, children of less educated mothers and low-income families benefit from attending after-school care centers in terms of their socio-behavioral development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic careers in Germany have been under debate for a while. We conduct a survey among postdocs in Germany to analyze the perceptions and attitudes of postdocs regarding their research incentives, their working conditions, and their career prospects. We conceptualize the career prospects of a postdoc in a life-cycle perspective of transitions from academic training to academic or non-academic jobs. Only about half of the postdocs sees strong incentives for academic research, but there is quite a strong confidence to succeed in an academic career. Furthermore, postdocs who attended a PhD program show better career prospects and higher research incentives compared to others. Academic career prospects and motivation are strongest for assistant professors. Apart from this small group, however, postdocs report only a small impact of the university reforms of the last decade. Female postdocs show significantly higher research incentives but otherwise we find little gender differences. Finally, good prospects in non-academic jobs are not associated with a reduction in the motivation for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article, a response to an article by German education researcher Hans Brügelmann in this issue, discusses the challenges faced by advocates of educational change in Germany. It addresses the diverging interests to which schools find themselves exposed and the conception of a democratic school. It also reflects on the question what exactly scholarly research in the field of education can achieve and what it can contribute to the debate on the other issues.

Copyright of Erwägen Wissen Ethik is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Zeitschrift fur Wirtschaftspolitik is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article provides a critical account of the situation of schools and universities in Germany. Based on this, the allocation of responsibilities for education policy in Germany's federal system is scrutinized. Hopes and fears associated with a more competitive, decentralized provision of education are discussed, referring to empirical studies. In conclusion, competition among states in a federation is advocated as a device for promoting policy innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the text of a talk by Helmut Rohde, Bundesminister für Bildung und Wissenschaft (Federal Minister for Education and Science) at a November 1976 conference of the Deutscher Gerwerkschaftsbund (DGB - German Labor Federation). The author discusses the complex relationship between German educational and occupational systems and policies.