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Abstract
School, parental and peer group effects have been identified as being influential in shaping the decision of students to participate in post‐compulsory education, but the analysis of each effect separately is rare. Using a random effects logistic regression approach, estimates of the importance of school, parental and peer group effects on student choices are presented which suggest that peer groups play an important role in determining boys’ choices at 16, while the decision to stay on across gender is strongly influenced by parental background. Profiles show that the social class of peers’ fathers influence strongly the probability of a student staying on.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank two referees, seminar participants at the EALE conference, Seville (2003), and at the University of Kent for their helpful comments.
Notes
1. Such results are similar to those obtained by Mayer (Citation1991) who finds that advantaged peer groups tend to lower the probability of dropping out of school.
2. See, for example, McWhirter et al. (Citation1988), Micklewright (Citation1989), Emler and St. James (Citation1990) and Cheng (Citation1995).
3. See Brooks (Citation1998) for a survey of the available evidence from the educational and sociological fields.
4. The number of complications increases when we consider that Scotland did not implement all changes.
5. See Andrews and Bradley (Citation1997) for an overview of the increase in the range of options open to pupils after the age of 16.
6. See Greenaway and Haynes (Citation2003) for an overview.
7. See McEwan (Citation2003) for an analysis of peer effects in the Chilean education system.
8. A comprehensive review of this literature can be found in Durlauf (Citation2004).
9. We do not know whether the individuals who intended to leave school were less likely to complete the survey, but this is a possibility.
10. Self‐classification of ability variables are potentially biased. A better proxy would be their actual ability, but such evidence was not available. Nevertheless, confidence in and perceptions of one’s own ability relative to others will influence an individual’s decision on whether they should continue to study after the age of 16.
11. The peculiar signs and size of the schooling coefficients are due to the fact that only one pupil with this background attended a secondary school and this pupil stayed on.