The Importance of Regional Factors for School Choice: An Empirical Linkage of Micro and Macro Levels

• In Event: Roundtable Session 28
  In Roundtable Session: Success Stories in Transitions

Abstract

School transitions are often related to different options and opportunities for the further educational career and job position. In comparison with other countries, in Austria parents have to choose very early, after four years of elementary school, if their child is to attend the academic secondary school (AHS), which is connected with a certification for university attendance, or the lower secondary school (HS), leading students mostly into vocational or higher vocational education. There is empirical evidence that the transition from elementary to secondary school differs depending on the residential- and school area, and relates to contextual factors of these (f.e. Fritz 2006, Ditton 2007, Lauen 2007, Lassnig & Vogtenhuber 2009). In the school year 2008/2009, a new school-type, the “New Middle School” (NMS), was implemented and will replace the lower secondary school by 2015/2016. It is also intended to relieve social and regional disparities. Due to the fact, that the school reform tends to reduce regional disparities, the status-quo of regional differences in school attendance seems to be of great interest.
Traditional theories of school choice, like the micro-social approach of Boudon (1974), attribute selective school decisions to different educational family backgrounds. Nevertheless, educational geography models (Meusburger 1998) and human settlement theories (f.e. Friedrichs 1977) also indicate that school and job offers, as well as the economic structure of the region and the commuting time to school, have an influence on school-decisions. Often these contextual factors at the macro-level are not taken into account and combined with family background variables. In this paper both approaches are integrated.
The paper addresses the question of whether the regional context of residential area and school attendance behaviour relate to each other and if this connection has already changed during the implementation of the New Middle School. It also deals with the question of whether the effect of the regional-context identified depends on the educational background of the family. To test these assumptions, data from the evaluation project “NOESIS” is used for analysis. The school-choice and parent educational background data was analyzed for all three cohorts. Additionally, geocoded administrative data of 30 communities in which the participants attended elementary school was collected. In a hierarchical logistic multi-level analysis, both data sources were linked with each other.
The results strongly suggest that the community context relates to regional school attendance rates. The analysis of over 1,800 school transitions assumes that despite the new school-type, changes in school enrolment behaviour are not observable. Regional disparities seem to be persistent over time. School choice does not only differ according to the reachability of the next academic secondary school, but also within a town by the elementary school attended and the social composition of the concerned district.
The results indicate that the implementation of a new school-type, the New Middle School, has not yet helped to reduce spatial and social disparities in school enrolment. This highlights the importance of strategies for strengthening the attractiveness of local schooling, which can be seen as a general motor for community living.

Author

• Mariella Knapp, University of Vienna