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Higher Education or Vocational Training?

An Empirical Test of the Rational Action Model of Educational Choices Suggested by Breen and Goldthorpe and Esser

Department of Sociology of Education, University of Berne, Berne, Switzerland, rolf.becker{at}edu.unibe.ch

Anna Etta Hecken

Department of Education and Culture, Frauenfeld, Switzerland, anna.hecken{at}tg.ch

Our aim in this article is to reveal crucial factors affecting the access to higher education claimed in rational action theories in Germany. Data on the educational choices of high school graduates in Saxony support the basic assumptions of the rational choice model suggested by Esser and by Breen and Goldthorpe. First, working-class children are likely to be diverted from higher education by their self-evaluated school achievement. In contrast to expected economic returns from education, theoretically expected class-specific motives of status maintenance are crucial factors in regard to class-specific educational decisions. Besides class differences of expectations regarding intergenerational upward mobility or educational success at university, it is subjective estimation of educational costs that is pivotal in the decision against higher education in favour of alternative vocational education — depending on the actual allocation of financial capital between social classes. The initial economic distribution among high school graduates leads to socially selective educational decisions and, consequently, to inequality of educational opportunity in higher education. While these rational choice theories explain class-related inequality, they do not explain the gender inequality in higher education marginally favouring women.

Key Words: class structure • higher education • primary effects • rational choice • secondary effects • social inequality of education • vocational training

Acta Sociologica, Vol. 52, No. 1, 25-45 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0001699308100632


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