Was können Schulabgängerinnen und Schulabgänger ohne Mittleren Schulabschluss aus Übergangsmaßnahmen mitnehmen? Entwicklungen und Übergangschancen in Ausbildung

Jugendliche ohne Mittleren Schulabschluss besuchen nach Verlassen der Schule oft Maßnahmen im Übergangsbereich des beruflichen Bildungssystems. In unserem Beitrag untersuchen wir mit Daten des Nationalen Bildungspanels, was sie aus solchen Maßnahmen für ihren weiteren Bildungsweg mitnehmen können. Wir betrachten Entwicklungen in drei Bereichen: Nachholen von Schulabschlüssen, Sammeln von betrieblichen Erfahrungen und Entwicklung des Bewerbungsverhaltens auf Ausbildungsplätze. Wir untersuchen zum einen, wer unter den Schulabgängerinnen und -abgängern ohne Mittleren Schulabschluss in Übergangsmaßnahmen Fortschritte in diesen drei Bereichen macht, und zum anderen, ob die Teilnehmenden dadurch ihre Ausbildungschancen nach Maßnahmenende verbessern können. Unsere Ergebnisse bestätigen, dass alle drei Entwicklungen den Ausbildungszugang erleichtern können. Die Jugendlichen nutzen die Teilnahme an Übergangsmaßnahmen jedoch auf unterschiedliche Weise: Während jene mit vergleichsweise günstigen Ausgangsbedingungen häufiger Schulabschlüsse nachholen, sammeln jene mit schlechteren Ausgangsbedingungen eher betriebliche Erfahrungen und verbessern ihr Bewerbungsverhalten.In Germany, school leavers without an intermediate school-leaving certificate often enter so-called prevocational programs. In this article, we use data from the German National Educational Panel Study to investigate whether and how these young people can benefit from these programs in their further educational careers. We focus on three potential developments: catching up on school-leaving certificates, establishing linkages to firms, and improving one’s application behavior. First, we ask who among the school leavers achieves development in these three areas during program participation. Second, we analyze if these developments are helpful for entering vocational training afterwards. We show that developments in all three areas are connected to better chances to enter vocational training. However, young people make different use of prevocational programs: While those with better starting conditions are more likely to catch up on school-leaving certificates during these programs, those with poorer starting conditions mainly establish linkages to firms and improve their application behavior

Unentdeckte Kompetenzen: Jugendliche ohne Mittleren Schulabschluss finden schwer einen Ausbildungsplatz

Nur die Hälfte der Jugendlichen, die höchstens einen Hauptschulabschluss haben, schafft den direkten Übergang in eine Ausbildung. Weder kognitive Fähigkeiten noch soziale Kompetenzen erhöhen die Übergangschancen dieser Jugendlichen. Solange vor allem Noten und Abschlüsse zählen, ist der Blick der Betriebe auf individuelle Stärken verstellt

ProMeQuaLab - Projeto de Melhoria da Qualidade Laboratorial para Países de Língua Portuguesa: trabalhos realizados e em curso 2017

Apresentação sobre os trabalhos realizados e em curso no âmbito do projeto de Melhoria da Qualidade Laboratorial para Países de Língua Portuguesa (ProMeQuaLab).N/

Intergenerational Transmission of Educational Attainment: How Important Are Children's Personality Characteristics?

This study examines the role of a wide range of personality characteristics-such as the Big Five personality traits, self-esteem, goal pursuit/adjustment, social behavior, and educational aspirations-for the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment in Germany, and compares their relative importance with that of cognitive skills. We use information on more than 8,000 students from the German National Educational Panel Study. We find that personality characteristics do not mediate the association between parents' and children's attainment of the university entrance qualification (the Abitur) by age 19/20. Only educational aspirations are a strong mediator for intergenerational educational transmission. A few personality characteristics moderate intergenerational educational transmission, and they do so in favor of children with high-educated parents either as Matthew effects or compensatory advantages. In contrast to personality characteristics, cognitive skills act as strong mediators, while moderation is rather weak when accounting for personality characteristics-but again, they work in favor of privileged children. Our German study reveals similarities but also differences compared with the mostly U.S.- and U.K.-based research and inspires to rethink the importance of personality characteristics and cognitive skills for intergenerational education attainment

Persistent Disadvantages or New Opportunities? The Role of Agency and Structural Constraints for Low-Achieving Adolescents' School-to-Work Transitions

School leavers with low educational attainment face great difficulties in their school-to-work transitions. They are, however, quite heterogeneous in terms of their personal and social resources. These within-group differences may influence who shows initiative during the school-to-work transition period and thereby helps employers recognize their learning potential at labor market entry. Yet this recognition also depends on the ways employers select applicants, which may prevent them from discovering such within-group differences. We therefore investigate the interplay between agency and its constraints, that is, whether higher cognitive and noncognitive skills and more parental resources provide low-achieving school leavers with new opportunities in the school-to-work transition period or whether their low school attainment causes the persistency of their disadvantages. We use panel data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), which started in grade 9. The NEPS also includes school leavers from special-needs schools. Our sample consists of 3417 low-achieving adolescents (42% female), defined as adolescents who leave school with no or only a lower secondary school-leaving certificate. Their average school-leaving age is 16 to 17 years. Our key findings are that the transition period opens up new opportunities only for those low-achieving adolescents with better vocational orientation and higher career aspirations, leading them to make stronger application efforts. The success of youth’s initiative varies considerably by school-leaving certificate and school type but not by competences, noncognitive characteristics, and parental background. Thus, the label of “having low qualifications” is a major obstacle in this transition period - especially for the least educated subgroup. Their poor school attainment strongly disadvantages them when accessing the required training to become economically independent and hence in their general transition to adulthood. Our results are also of interest internationally, because participation in firm-based training programs functions as the entry labor market in Germany. Thus, similar explanations may apply to low-achieving adolescents' difficulties in finding a job

Improving Formal Qualifications or Firm Linkages-What Supports Successful School-to-Work Transitions among Low-Achieving School Leavers in Germany?

Many countries have implemented youth (un)employment programmes for low-achieving young people to improve their employment prospects. In Germany, these youths are often channelled into prevocational programmes to prevent them from long-term 'scars' by providing a 'second chance' to enter apprenticeships (serving as entry into the labour market in Germany). However, the usefulness of these programmes is contested. It remains unclear whether it is (more) useful for young people to invest in education and improve formal qualifications (to send a positive ‘signal’) or to spend more time in firms (e.g. to counteract possible discrimination processes or to generate new network ties). It is also unclear who benefits most depending on previous school-leaving certificates. We address these questions by using rich data from the German National Educational Panel Study and apply entropy balancing as a matching approach to control for selection. We find that both attaining a higher school certificate and spending time in firms improve low-achieving youth's chances to enter apprenticeships. However, only those who attained a higher-level school certificate are able to enter higher-status training occupations afterwards. Moreover, prevocational programmes are most beneficial for the most disadvantaged

Effectiveness of an Alternative Forced Choice Paradigm in adolescent girls with eating disorders and depression and their reductions of negative body-related attitudes – A pilot study

Body Image Distortion (BID) is a complex, multifactorial condition most closely associated with eating disorders (EDs), but also found in other disorders including depression (DEP), especially in young people. Although BID predicts treatment outcomes and relapse rates, they are only addressed by a few studies and treatment interventions. Recently training interventions to shift an individual’s categorical boundary when judging other peoples’ bodies as “thin”/”fat” were proved to be able to shift that boundary towards higher BMIs with confrontational feedback about the choices made by adults with sub-clinical ED-symptoms. This shift was accompanied by improvements in BID-related symptoms and general ED pathology. This new pilot-study tests the feasibility and functionality of using this intervention in 24 female, adolescent in-patients, diagnosed with an ED or DEP. They participated in 8 interactive sessions, following a counterbalanced cross-over design, containing a 4-session interventional (corrective feedback) and 4-session control (maintaining feedback) condition. Follow-up measures were obtained after 2 weeks. The results revealed significant adaptive changes of the position of the categorical BMI boundary as well as clinically relevant improvements in ED-related psychometrics in both diagnostic groups in the intervention condition. In contrast to the previous studies, a negative impact on both psychophysical and psychometric measures could be observed in the control condition. The implications of these results are discussed for feasibility of using this training in this special target group with suggestions for improving the task for further studies