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Recent research has increasingly been studying the long-lasting effects of secondary education structures and processes on higher education (HE) outcomes. While the influence of socioeconomic composition on higher education enrolment is established, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We posit that the composition effect partially runs through the educational expectations of the students' peers at school. By considering shared post-secondary expectations among students within a school -- or, peer expectation culture -- we transcend the dominant individual approach to expectations. Additionally, we go beyond the supposed positive (i.e. normative) effects of peers on HE enrolment, by considering the negative effects of having ambitious peers on HE enrolment resulting from comparative group processes. Logistic multilevel analyses of longitudinal data (2013-2019) from 1250 students across 30 Flemish high schools showed that socio-economic status (SES) composition effects on HE outcomes were mediated by expectation culture. Students attending schools with high expectation cultures were more likely to attend HE in general, and to attend university over other HE institutes compared to students in schools with low expectation cultures. The results suggest normative effects of peers on both outcomes, while comparative processes were only found for the choice of institution. This study underscores the long-term consequences of both individual and school-level expectations in secondary education and calls for including comparative reference group effects in studies on educational decision-making.

Having a low sense of belonging in secondary education is associated with feelings of social alienation, lower school performance, and dropping out early. Based on person-environment fit theory, we expect retained students to experience a misfit with their academic environment. This experience could intensify when there are fewer other retained students around. The contextual impact of grade retention on sense of belonging is assessed by cross-national multilevel analyses on PISA 2015 data (25 countries; 7,979 schools; 194,195 students). Overall, results suggest retained students have a significantly lower sense of belonging. The negative association between grade retention and sense of belonging increases in schools and countries with a low number of retained students. This indicates that in schools and countries with a low retention composition, retained students suffer from a lower sense of belonging, because of both their status as a retained student and the absence of other retained students. Implications are discussed.

Previous studies on the impact of grade retention on academic self-concept suffer from inconclusive findings. There is no consensus if retention yields long-term benefits that could offset its opportunity costs and, if so, under what conditions. Therefore, this article examines whether grade retention decreases academic self-concept and whether this relationship is mediated by sense of belonging. Moreover, we aim to contextualise retention research by accounting for schools' retention composition. Based on reference group theory, the effect of grade retention composition on academic self-concept is expected to be twofold. Normative reference grouping leads to the assumption that students in high retention composition schools will exhibit lower levels of academic self-concept, because retainees' values are more likely to spread across all students within the same school. Comparative reference grouping might lead to a moderation effect of retention composition on the relationship between grade retention and academic self-concept. Multilevel analyses on International Study of City Youth data, consisting of 2,354 students in 30 secondary schools in Ghent (Flanders), revealed a negative association between grade retention and academic self-concept, which was mediated by sense of belonging. Students in high retention composition schools had a significantly lower academic self-concept. The impact of being retained on academic self-concept is not affected by the number of retainees within a given context. Implications are discussed.

This study investigates whether the ethnic and socioeconomic composition of the secondary school affect higher education enrollment and program choice (non-university higher education or university) in an educational system using a separation model. School-wide social capital is investigated as an underlying mechanism to explain how school composition affects higher education enrollment. Results of logistic multilevel analyses, carried out on the International Study of City Youth (ISCY) data of 1131 Flemish students across 30 schools, demonstrated that students enrolled in migrant concentration schools showed lower rates of higher education attendance because these schools were associated with a low socioeconomic composition. Attending high migrant composition schools and/or high socioeconomic composition schools was beneficial to attend university programs. High-quality peer relationships mediated these composition effects. Additionally, a boosting effect of teacher-student relationships and a buffering effect of high-quality peer relations at school were found, rendering these interesting tools for educational policy makers to decrease social inequality in higher education enrollment and program choice.

Despite the massification of higher education, social inequality in higher education outcomes still persists. It is known that secondary schools' socioeconomic composition is at least partly responsible for this social inequality. Nevertheless, the mechanisms by which socioeconomic composition affects higher education enrollment are still poorly understood. Based on the attribution theory, this study expects students' feelings of academic self-efficacy and sense of futility to act as underlying mechanisms. Additionally, given that individual self-efficacy beliefs and individual sense of futility are shared among students within schools -- that is, schools have different self-efficacy and futility cultures -- we investigate whether these cultures are consequential for higher education enrollment and program choice. Results of binomial logistic multilevel analyses on the data of the International Study of City Youth (www.iscy.org) in Ghent, consisting of 1214 Flemish students across 29 schools, indicated that students in low socioeconomic composition schools are less likely to enroll in higher education because these schools are characterized by high futility cultures. In contrast, high self-efficacy and self-efficacy cultures are positively associated with the choice for academic bachelor programs, but they did not explain socioeconomic composition effects. We conclude that educational policies should aim at increasing a sense of control over academic outcomes in order to improve social equality in higher education outcomes.

It is commonly known that education reproduces, rather than diminishes, social inequality, but how this takes place may vary between educational systems. This paper uses data from a unique longitudinal cross-national project to analyze differences in pathways through the upper years of secondary education between Bergen (Norway), Ghent (Flanders, Belgium) and Barcelona (Spain). Analyses show that social background has the greatest impact on destination in both Years 11 and 12 of upper secondary education, and engagement does not mediate this relationship. Further, we find more commonalities than differences between the cities, despite them representing different types of educational systems.

Understanding social disparities in educational attainment requires understanding of students' decision‐making throughout their educational career. We focused on students' pathways throughout upper secondary and higher education (HE), identified common types of pathways and studied the role of SES as a determinant of students' pathways. Additionally, we researched the role of engagement for overcoming socioeconomic disadvantages in students' educational decision‐making. Using data from 965 Flemish students, optimal matching analyses identified seven distinct pathways throughout upper secondary and HE. While pathways largely mirrored the tracked structure of the Flemish educational system, there was considerable within‐track heterogeneity. Multinomial regression analyses demonstrated that even among the academic track students, socioeconomic background affected programme choice and long‐term academic success. Less engaged students were less likely to follow university pathways. Moreover, higher cognitive engagement decreased disadvantaged students' chances of ending up in typical vocational pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition from primary to secondary education is regarded as a crucial phase in pupils' school careers. Changes in the school environment have a negative influence on pupils' perceived control and engagement. However, until now little attention has been devoted to the role of the onset of ability grouping therein, which often coincides with the start of secondary education. Research has shown that students in non-academic tracks display lower levels of perceived control and engagement. In this study we examine the relation between pupils' prospective track choice and feelings of perceived control and behavioural and cognitive engagement "before" the transition to secondary education. Stepwise multilevel regression models were run on data collected from pupils in their last year of primary education in 36 schools in the cities of Antwerp and Ghent (Flanders, Belgium) in May-June 2016. The results show that pupils who indicated that they would start secondary education in non-academic tracks displayed lower levels of perceived control and behavioural and cognitive engagement than pupils who indicated that they would start in an academic track. Further analyses suggest that teacher assessments of pupils' competence play an important role in explaining these differences according to prospective track choice--with regard to perceived control and behavioural disengagement, this effect is established net of students' actual competence. This study demonstrates that differences in perceived control and engagement according to track originate in primary education, and that primary school teachers play a vital part in labelling students according to their future careers.

Transferring to another school or leaving the educational system altogether has considerable consequences not only for the student who makes the decision to leave, but also for the students who stay behind. This paper aims to investigate the effects of secondary schools' mobility and dropout rates on the levels of school engagement in the persistent student population, drawing on peer effect research in engagement and dropout literature. Multilevel analysis was carried out on data collected in 2015 from 1577 non-mobile students in 25 Ghentian (Belgium) schools, who participated in the International Study of City Youth-project (ISCY). The findings suggest that schools get caught up in a vicious circle, in which higher in-mobility rates bring about lower levels of behavioral engagement in non-mobile students, making those students in turn more vulnerable for negative educational decisions like dropping out or changing schools.

Political involvement differs according to youngsters' social background, but the role of students' own educational pathways in that social gradient is less clear. We investigate whether track position and the school composition mediate and/or moderate the social gradient in the development of students' political involvement. Examining schools in Ghent (Flanders, Belgium), Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) and Bergen (Norway) – we investigate whether these determinants for change in political engagement during upper secondary education differ between educational systems. Results from multilevel conditional change models show that the role of social background in changes in political involvement matters across the studied educational systems, but the role of track and school composition varies. In Barcelona, all the impact from social background on the increase in political involvement can be accounted for by track position, whereas in the Flemish system, the increase in political involvement is higher among those in academic tracks if they have low social background rather than high. There is more variance between schools in Ghent, and ethnic school concentration is associated with a smaller increase in political involvement there. The Norwegian system has little between-school variance and small differences between tracks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strain theories expect socio-economically disadvantaged students to be overrepresented among perpetrators of school-deviant behavior. Empirical research, however, is inconclusive about the SES-deviance relationship. Recently, strain theorists argued that economic deprivation, rather than a socio-economic status (SES) index is related to delinquency. This study is unique in investigating these claims in an educational context. Specifically, we investigate the association between SES and economic deprivation, and school misconduct. We also aim to shed light on why and under which conditions SES and deprivation are associated with misconduct. Starting from strain theory and social cognitive theory, we hypothesize academic self-efficacy to mediate and/or to moderate discovered associations. Following previous findings that socioeconomic status effects on deviance differ across national contexts, we apply a cross-national design, investigating the hypotheses in four European cities, namely Barcelona (Spain), Bergen (Norway), Ghent (Belgium), and Wroclaw (Poland). Analyses on data of 9174 students across 111 schools (2013-2014) confirmed that deprivation is more important for rule-breaking than SES, but self-efficacy did not mediate, nor moderate deprivation effects. Importantly, self-efficacy did moderate SES effects. Students from lower SES-families are prone to be deviant at school, but this association may be buffered by increasing students' academic self-efficacy. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Teachability perceptions reflect teachers' perceptions of students' cognitive-motivational behaviors, personal social behaviors, and school-appropriate behaviors. Teachers in schools with more students with a low socioeconomic status (SES) or in schools with more boys have been shown to perceive students as less teachable. It remains to be seen whether teacher characteristics, specifically efficacy or trust, buffer against lower teachability perceptions in challenging school contexts. A multilevel analysis was carried out on data of 1247 teachers in 59 Flemish schools (2012–2013). Lower teachability perceptions were found in low-SES schools and schools with more boys. Efficacious teachers perceived their students as teachable, but teacher efficacy did not buffer against lower teachability perceptions in low-SES schools or in schools with more boys. Teacher trust, on the other hand, does buffer lower teachability perceptions in schools with more boys. This finding demonstrates that trusting teacher-student relationships might be a key factor to overcome between-school differences in teacher perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across the world, numerous students are being bullied at school. Bullying is often caused by a power imbalance between students. Therefore, identifying potential sources of such a power imbalance can prevent school bullying from happening. Based on the labelling theory, we expect that grade retention can lead to such a power imbalance and, therefore, increase the likelihood of being bullied at school. Hence, this study examines the association between grade retention and self-reported victimisation. We also expect that retainees will be less likely to become a victim of school bullying in schools and countries with a high number of other retainees. If true, this would signal a moderating effect of both school- and country retention composition on the association between grade retention and victimisation. The contextualised impact of grade retention upon victimisation is assessed by cross-national multilevel analyses on PISA2018 data (25 countries; 8,039 schools; 159,412 students). Overall, our findings indicate that being retained in primary and/or secondary education is associated with higher levels of victimisation, while retainees suffer from more victimisation in countries with a low number of other retainees. In contrast to our expectations, however, we did not find such a moderation effect of school retention composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Track position has an impact on students' perceptions of educational success. These perceptions matter as they relate to educational and professional aspirations and choices. In this ethnographic study, based on ethnographic observations and semi-structured interviews in three secondary schools in Flanders (northern part of Belgium), we want to increase our understanding of the combination of within- and between track comparisons for students' perceptions of their educational success. The hierarchical nature of the Flemish educational system is reflected in students' comparison groups to evaluate their school success. In academic tracks, most students considered their educational career automatically as successful, regardless of their actual grades. Conversely, students in vocational tracks developed more contradictory feelings with respect to their personal school success and felt the need to distinguish themselves from their classmates. Thus, regardless the existence of different school cultures across tracks, students searched for strategies to define themselves as successful in school.

We examine the association between grade retention and the number of same-grade friendships. Moreover, we investigate the effect of a school's proportion of retained students on these friendships and the moderating effect of this school characteristic on the relationship between retention and the number of same-grade friendships. Multilevel analyses on data from 11,759 students in 83 Flemish secondary schools show that secondary school retention is related to a lower number of friendships. Primary school retention is unrelated to friendship quantity in secondary education. Furthermore, students attending schools with a higher percentage of retained students have fewer same-grade friendships. The retention composition also moderates the effect of individual grade retention on the number of same-grade friendships. The implications are discussed.

Starting from a person-environment fit framework, this study investigates whether ethnic congruence--the percentage of co-ethnics in a school--relates to school misconduct and whether congruence effects differ between ethnic minority and majority students. Moreover, we investigate whether eventual associations are mediated by friendship attachment, perceived teacher support, and general school belonging. Multilevel analyses of data from 11,759 students across 83 Flemish secondary schools show that higher ethnic congruence is associated with lower levels of school misconduct but only for ethnic minority students. This effect was not mediated by friendship attachment, nor by teacher support, but it was mediated by general school belonging. We conclude that ethnic minority students in schools with a higher percentage of peers of co-ethnic descent are less likely to break the school rules because they feel more contented in the school context, which is congruent with the person-environment fit framework.

Past research into the consequences of tracking mainly documented on the impact of attending different tracks on students' achievement and behavior. Less attention has been paid to the impact of track positions on teachers' perceptions and expectations regarding students. By means of multi-level analysis of data of 6,545 students in 46 Flemish secondary schools with self-reported student measures and teachers' evaluations of students, this study examines if teachers' evaluations of secondary school students' cognitive capacity, effort in class and diligence in doing homework vary by track, and whether teachers' perceptions are informed (1) by the typical students' background features; (2) by the students' resistance to school; or (3) by labeling of students attending certain tracks. Teachers perceive lower track students as less able and less diligent in doing homework because of students' social and cognitive characteristics and anti-school behavior. Accounting for the latter, teachers even evaluate lower track students as paying slightly more effort. The implications for future research and social policy are discussed.

Recent decades have seen many studies dealing with the effects of teacher expectations. While most have focused on students' cognitive outcomes, we relate teacher expectations to student deviancy. We expect low expectations to be associated with students' feelings of futility and less teacher support, which, according to respectively strain theory and social control theory, give rise to misconduct. Multilevel analyses of data (2004-2005) from 11,844 students and 2104 teachers in 84 Flemish secondary schools suggest that, in schools where teacher expectations are low, students report less perceived teacher support, which is associated with higher rates of self-reported school misconduct. (Contains 3 tables.)

The schools-as-communities perspective provides a popular explanation for school-disruptive behavior, stating that interpersonal bonding at school and feelings of school belonging prevent misconduct. In this article, we build on this perspective in three ways. First, we test whether the preventive influence of school belonging acts at the individual or school level. Secondly, we test whether a distinction should be made between the different actors with whom students bond at school, by assessing whether perceived teacher support, school belonging, and peer attachment relate differently to school misconduct. Lastly, the present study investigates whether the associations of bonding with teachers, peers and the school with school misconduct differ by socio-ethnic school context. Multilevel analyses were performed on data from the Flemish Educational Assessment. The sample consisted of 11,872 students (51.4% female) in 85 schools, most of whom were natives (88.8%), with immigrants (11.2%) mostly having Turkish or Moroccan backgrounds (both about 30% of immigrants in the sample), and others Southern-European (16%), Eastern-European (8%), North-African (5%), or other (17%) backgrounds. Results showed that the students' individual feelings of bonding with peers, teachers and school associate with school misconduct, rather than the overall school cohesion. Results further showed that, while higher perceived teacher support and school belonging related to less school misconduct, higher peer attachment was associated with higher rates of school misconduct. No differences were found by socio-ethnic context. Implications are discussed.

Grschool, in Flemish secondary schools. Methods: We use data from the Flemish Educational Assessment (FlEA), consisting of 11,872 students in 85 schools. Multivariate analyses of variance (ANOVA) were performed. Results: Non-involved students felt most attached to peers, parents, teachers, and school. Bullies matched the level of parental attachment of the non-involved, and are even more popular among peers. Victims are especially unsuccessful among peers. Bully/victims felt least attached to peers, parents and school, and least supported by teachers. Discussion: Bullies appear to be popular among peers. Victims and bully/victims lack a number of important sources of support. Translation to Health Education Practice: The results of this study endorse peer-group level intervention initiatives. Furthermore, we support whole-school approaches that include all actors--including pupils, parents, and teachers--in combating bullying. (Contains 2 tables.)