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Educational regimes and success in the life course: The Role of digital literacy, transnational competencies and personality in schooled societies

Mon, March 24, 4:30 to 5:45pm, Palmer House, Floor: 7th Floor, Clark 10

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

In modern societies the value of education – typically in the form of credentials – is decisive for individual success and prosperity of the society. Education is typically divided into general, vocational, and tertiary levels, with a pronounced emphasis on tertiary education. Baker's “schooled society” (2014) describes the value of innovation and education for society very clearly: a society is described as modern if the research performance is high and the qualifications of the population are demonstrated by certificates, diplomas and degrees (credentials).
The role of education for individual welfare is best illustrated by the human capital theory, which emphasizes the value of education for later life. Proponents of classic human capital theory argue that each year of schooling translates directly into skills that enhance individual productivity and, consequently, labor market returns (e.g., income).
This theory essentially emphasizes the benefits of education in the life course and on the labor market. The international literature emphasizes that the value of education in midlife is reflected through prestige (status) and economic position (income). During the last 10 years individual well-being and satisfaction is also linked to this concept.
However, societies regulate access to education differently. A notable distinction introduced in the 1960s classifies societies as either “sponsored” or “contested” (Turner 1960). In educational literature, “contested society” and “sponsored society” are described as two different concepts that shape the educational process and access to knowledge and structure the return’s to education. These terms reflect different social and political structures that influence the education system.
A contested society emphasizes individual effort and competition. A structured “elite” society emphasizes selective access to education. A few groups and defined access rules determine the value of education in a society. In both social models, individual welfare, i.e. the utilization of education on the labor market, is regulated differently. The return is determined by competition in education or by selectivity in access to the labor market and little competition. Education can either be an open pathway to status and income or a means to guarantee selective access for a few.
In addition to these two institutional structures and the associated opportunities to utilize education, international research shows that individual factors are particularly important for the prosperity position in middle adulthood. The sharp increase in higher education acquisition across social classes and genders, spurred by educational expansion, has intensified competition for the relatively scarce and coveted positions in the globalizing labor market. To maintain status advantages and at the same time cope with challenges caused by globalization, digitalization, demographic change, especially advantaged strata are increasingly focused on new opportunities to acquire skills or personality traits advantageous for job and status attainment. In particular, skills gained from distinct activities such as studying abroad or digital literacy have gained increasing importance over the last 30 years.
The literature shows that these factors are important, but what is not yet known is how these factors work in different societies (contested or sponsored) and over the life course.
Addressing this issue, the four papers in this panel explore different strategies used by individuals and their families to enhance their labor market outcomes, focusing on national regulations and the development of three specific competencies: digital literacy, various personality traits and international competencies. The analyses are built on representative data from four schooled societies: Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. With the exception of the first paper, which uses large scale data from the PISA study, the other three papers use representative longitudinal data, allowing for investigations of causality in the process of status attainment based on status and income, considering the time dimension as proposed by life-course theory (Elder, 1985). The analyses presented in this panel provide new and reliable empirical evidence on the role of education for social and gender inequality in labor market success in these four schooled societies. More specifically, the papers focus on adolescents’ expectations regarding their later occupational status (Byun et al.); the impact of personal and motivational factors (Lauterbach & Entrich), international mobility (Entrich et al.), and digital literacy (Nern & Lauterbach) on income, status and well-being.
Our comparative approach highlights these questions for gender in the two different educational regimes. This enables us to identify country-specific factors that may foster inequality and to derive strategies for educational policy and practice aimed at addressing these disparities. Through a comparative lens, we illuminate international trends and directions while extracting the country-specific dynamics of inequality development focusing on case studies representing different models of education systems, learning cultures, mobility regimes and education-labor market linkage. This research harmonizes large-scale, nationally representative longitudinal data to provide detailed, yet systematic, analyses with a stronger focus on causality.Educational regimes and success in the life course: The Role of digital literacy, transnational competencies and personality in schooled societies

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