514 research outputs found
Education Across the Life Course
There is a huge demand for high-quality longitudinal educational research in Germany. In particular, there is a clear need for both analytical and methodological progress in order to understand educational pathways through the life course and how they lead to different outcomes. This paper identifies the theoretical and methodological challenges of studying education across the life course and describes the structure of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) in Germany.competence development, educational decisions, formal, informal and non-formal educational environments, returns to education, educational trajectories, life course research, longitudinal analysis, panel data
Macrosociology, rational choice theory and time: a theoretical perspective on the empirical analysis of social processes
"In the first part of this paper, Blossfeld discusses some of the historical reasons why
the explosion of rational choice scholarship in the social sciences has had surprisingly
little influence on macro-sociological data analysis. In the second part, he shows that
any theoretically powerful sociological analysis of a macro-sociological problem must
pay attention to both structural- and micro-Ievel issues but not in the usual static way. Any macro-micro framework must recognize that time is significant in this relationship.
It must identify the particular historical structures and processes that dominate the
changes occurring in a given population, and it must specify the causal mechanisms
that allow us to trace the encounters of intentionally acting individuals with the flow of history as a series of choice processes."Die Studie diskutiert einige der vorwiegend historischen GrĂŒnde, warum das explosionsartige Anwachsen des rational-choice-Ansatzes in den Sozialwissenschaften bisher nur einen relativ geringen EinfluĂ auf die makrosoziologische Datenanalyse hat. In kritischer Auseinandersetzung mit dem rational-choice-Ansatz weist der Autor darauf hin, daĂ eine theoretisch fruchtbare Analyse makrosoziologischer Probleme nicht auf dem bisher ĂŒblichen statistischen Weg erfolgen kann. Jeder Makro-Mikro-Ansatz hat den Zeitfaktor zu berĂŒcksichtigen, der die Beziehung der Ebenen signifikant beeinfluĂt. Dazu mĂŒssen die besonderen historischen Strukturen und Prozesse in einer gegebenen Gesellschaft bzw. Population erfaĂt und der spezifische kausale Mechanismus identifiziert werden, der die Intentionen von individuellen Akteuren mit dynamischen historischen Prozessen auf der Makroebene vermittelt. Am Beispiel des Heiratsverhaltens werden einige der theoretischen Annahmen demonstriert. (pre
Education Across the life course
"There is a huge demand for high-quality longitudinal educational research in Germany. In particular, there is a clear need for both analytical and methodological progress in order to understand educational pathways through the life course and how they lead to different outcomes. This paper identifies the theoretical and methodological challenges of studying education across the life course and describes the structure of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) in Germany." (author's abstract
Wealth inequality in Europe and the delusive egalitarianism of Scandinavian countries
Past sociological inequality research focused on (labor) market outcomes, while neglecting the even more important role of wealth. In our study we investigate the distribution of wealth among the elderly across Europe within the framework of Esping-Andersenâs typology of welfare states. Using SHARE data, our analyses suggest (1) that there is strong variation in the distribution of wealth between European countries, and (2) that patterns of wealth inequality differ strongly from patterns of income inequality. Surprisingly high levels of wealth disparity were found in the social democratic welfare regimes commonly known as very egalitarian societies. We conclude that Esping-Andersenâs scheme requires reconsideration because it is based on a one-sided understanding of social stratiïŹcation not accounting for the central role of wealth in the stratiïŹcation process.Inequality, wealth, net worth, income, SHARE, stratiïŹcation, welfare state, Europe
Changes in the division of labor within highly educated German couples when the first child is born
"When becoming parents for the first time, German
couples often adapt their division of paid and
unpaid work, creating a more gender-specific allocation. Using longitudinal data from the qualitative event-centered project 'Household division of domestic labor as a process', we compare theoretically-postulated mechanisms of change in the division of work within couples with explanations given by the couples interviewed themselves. Our qualitative analysis demonstrates that economic and gender norm theories are quite successful at predicting changes towards a more traditional specialization when couples become parents for the first time, while they are less helpful in explaining the persistence of equal arrangements in the domestic division of work, or the change towards more equal arrangements. The interviews also show that the explanations which differentiate - within unpaid work - between childcare and housework are a better predictor of the realities of the arrangements. Furthermore, the causal order of the decisions suggested by the theories differs from the couples' actual decision making processes: when facing the transition to parenthood, they decide first upon the division of childcare, and then of labor market activity and housework." (author's abstract)"Wenn Paare in Deutschland Eltern werden, verÀndern
sie hÀufig ihre Aufteilung von bezahlter und
unbezahlter Arbeit in Richtung eines geschlechtsspezifischen Arrangements. Auf Basis von qualitativen, ereigniszentrierten LÀngsschnittdaten des Projektes 'Innerfamiliale Arbeitsteilung als Prozess' vergleicht der vorliegende Artikel theoretische Annahmen zu VerÀnderungen der Arbeitsteilung in Paarbeziehungen mit den ErklÀrungen, die
hochgebildete Paare selbst geben. Unsere qualitative Analyse zeigt, dass sowohl ökonomische als auch Gender-Theorien relativ erfolgreich erklĂ€ren, warum Paare sich fĂŒr eine eher traditionelle Spezialisierung der Arbeiten entscheiden, wenn sie den Ăbergang zur Erstelternschaft erleben. Diese Theorien sind hingegen weniger erfolgreich darin, zu erklĂ€ren, warum Paare egalitĂ€re Arrangements beibehalten oder wĂ€hlen. Anhand der qualitativen Interviews wird ersichtlich, dass ErklĂ€rungsmuster, die im Bereich der unbezahlten Arbeit zwischen Kinderbetreuung und Hausarbeit unterscheiden, besser die RealitĂ€t der Paare erfassen. DarĂŒber hinaus ist die von den Theorien vorgeschlagene kausale Reihenfolge der Entscheidungen eine andere als die der Paare: im Ăbergang zur Elternschaft entscheiden werdende Eltern zunĂ€chst ĂŒber die Kinderbetreuung und dann ĂŒber ErwerbstĂ€tigkeit und
Hausarbeit." (Autorenreferat
Introduction to the special issue 'Online dating: social innovation and a tool for research on partnership formation'
Vor dem Hintergrund der Auseinandersetzung mit den ökonomischen Dimensionen der KontaktmĂ€rkte prĂ€sentieren die Verfasser zwei idealtypische GeschĂ€ftsmodelle, die bei der Gestaltung von digitalen Kontaktbörsen angewandt werden. Bei dem einen sind die Interessenten die aktive Seite, die im Netz nach möglichen Partnern suchen. Im zweiten Fall ĂŒbernehmen spezialisierte Firmen die aktive Rolle und prĂ€sentieren im Netz relevante Angebote. Kennzeichnend fĂŒr die RealitĂ€t dieser MĂ€rkte sind diverse Mischformen von digitalen Kontaktbörsen. In dieser PluralitĂ€t sehen die Autoren einen wesentlichen Grund fĂŒr das wissenschaftliche Interesse an diesen MĂ€rkten. Die organisatorischen und kommunikativen Dimensionen der digitalen Kontaktbörsen sowie die Kritik an diesem PhĂ€nomen werden als jeweilige GegenstĂ€nde spezialisierter Forschungsrichtungen prĂ€sentiert. AnschlieĂend werden die BeitrĂ€ge des Sonderhefts dargestellt. (ICF
Causal inference, time and observation plans in the social sciences
"This paper demonstrates that the opportunity for assessing causal inferences varies
strongly with the type of observation available to the social scientist. The data structure
(which can be cross-sectional, panel or event oriented) determines the extent to which
the researcher is forced to make untested assumptions in the process of establishing
relevant empirical evidence that can serve as a link in a chain of reasoning about
causal mechanisms."Das Arbeitspapier diskutiert methodologische Aspekte des Zeitfaktors bei der Untersuchung kausaler ZusammenhÀnge in den Sozialwissenschaften. Anhand einiger Beispiele wird beschrieben, wie verschiedene BeobachtungsplÀne (cross-sectional, panel und event history) die kausale Analyse von VariablenzusammenhÀngen beeinflussen. Die Diskussion erfolgt in Anlehnung an James Coleman "Foundations of Social Theory" (1981) in folgenden Schritten: (1) Die Bestimmung der Einheiten - Individuen, Organisationen, Gruppen, Gesellschaften u.a. - und deren diskrete ZustandsÀnderungen; (2) Dieser Wandel von ZustÀnden und Ereignissen findet zu jedem Zeitpunkt der Systemgeschichte statt; (3) Zu unterscheiden sind zeitinvariante und zeitabhÀngige Faktoren bei der Beinflussung des fraglichen Explanandums bzw. Ereignisses. Verdeutlicht wird diese methodische Vorgehensweise am Beispiel von Berufskarrieren. (pre
Dropping Out of Higher Education in Germany: Using Retrospective Life Course Data to Determine Dropout Rates and Destinations of Non-completers
In recent years, the high rates of higher education dropout have raised attention of education research and policy makers in Germany. However, due to data privacy legislation, it remains challenging to obtain information about the individual progress of students through higher education and the destinations of non-completers. With conventional administrative or cross-sectional data, it is not possible to distinguish non-completion from dropout, so that it mostly has to remain unclear if non-completers reach graduation elsewhere. This contribution uses the retrospective life course data of the NEPS starting cohort 6 to empirically disentangle non-completion and dropout of full-time students in higher education. We discuss the methodological challenges of conventional approaches and show how the advantages of retrospective life course data can be exploited for higher education research. We furthermore examine the destinations of non-completers and dropouts as well as the labour market returns of dropouts, using sequence data analyses and logistic regressions. Our results show that conventional designs possibly are prone to overestimate dropout rates. Longitudinal analyses of destinations after dropout reveal that the permeability between vocational training and higher education is not unidirectional. Vocational training is a relevant absorber of higher education dropouts, but at the same time, vocational qualifications that were gained prior to higher education work as safety-net that buffers labour market risks of dropouts
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