WHAT MATTERS IN THE TRANSITION FROM SCHOOL TO VOCATIONAL TRAINING IN GERMANY

ABSTRACT

The German multi-tiered school system functions as an institutional mechanism which prevents students from certain social class backgrounds from fulfilling their individual learning potential. Their cognitive abilities are not transformed into corresponding school performances and credentials. Against this backdrop, we ask whether the transition from school to vocational training may enable young people with intermediate and those with lower secondary school degrees to demonstrate their cognitive abilities irrespective of school certificates. We further aim to scrutinise the role of personality traits (Big Five) during the transition process. The analyses based on the German Socio-Economic Panel show – in line with previous research – that type of school degree is crucial in the transition process: Those with intermediate school degrees have faster transitions than those with lower degrees. Moreover, our findings suggest that the relative impact of credentials, cognitive abilities, and personality on labour market success cannot be answered universally. Instead, the relevant mechanisms appear to vary substantially by type of school degree.

Keywords:

• school-to-work transitions
• vocational training
• GSOEP
• labour markets

Acknowledgements

This research is funded by the Jacobs Foundation. Their financial support is gratefully acknowledged. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the International Young Scholar GSOEP Symposium (Bremen/Delmenhorst), the Equalsoc & ECSR joint Summer School (Trento), the annual ECSR conference (Paris) and a seminar at the Social Science Research Center Berlin. We thank all participants for their helpful comments. Heike Solga, John Goldthorpe and Klaus Schömann deserve special mention. We would further like to thank the two anonymous referees for their insightful criticisms.

Notes

1. The other factors of the Big Five Model are described in the next section. Whereas the founders of the Big Five Model (McCrae and Costa 1999) claim that the Big Five factors are biological endogenous dispositions and unchangeable by environmental factors, others have revealed that complex interactive processes of individual personality and the social context are responsible for both change and consistency (Roberts et al. 2003).

2. A combined measure of math grade, first foreign language and German has also been tested. In line with previous work, we find that math grade is the most relevant determinant.

3. Qualified job position comprises: foreman, manager, specialist, qualified profession, civil servant, self-employed and freelance professional; non-qualified job position comprises untrained and semi-trained blue-collar and white-collar worker or routine work.

4. We tested whether the variable ‘job position of head of household’ has a significant influence if the variable ‘child–parent relationship’ is excluded from the model, but this is not the case.