Worlds apart? An empirical assessment of education as a social boundary among young people in Flanders

ABSTRACT

Educational tracking refers to the grouping of students based on their academic abilities. Although tracking has been intensively debated in terms of its impact on academic outcomes, this study assesses whether educational tracks effectively constitute a social boundary between youth. Data from 11 surveys (Total N = 38,372) gathered among pupils enrolled in secondary education in Flanders were used to assess to what extent young people’s educational track position relates to a wide range of opinions and behavior in general (471 outcomes) and the potential moderating role of gender and migration status. Subsequently, we focused on indicators that refer to intergroup processes (i.e. cross-track friendships and perceived contempt). Educational differences are especially large for tastes, indicators of lifestyle, and societal attitudes. Moreover, we find that differences in educational track position are connected with perceived status differences and constitute an important structuring factor regarding their friendships.

KEYWORDS:

• Educational track
• status
• mass study
• intergroup relations

Acknowledgments

This research could not have been possible without the help of many. We wish to acknowledge and sincerely thank all current and former members of the research group TOR (www.vub.ac.be/TOR) and the Flemish Youth Research Platform (www.jeugdonderzoeksplatform.be) who have contributed to the construction of a data warehouse that is unique in documenting the lives and opinions of young people in Flanders. The authors’ received for this research funding from the Stichting P&V Verzekeringen in the context of the their project Connecting You(th).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Declarations

This paper is based on secondary analyses of existing data. Data collection procedures vary between the databases and are described in the technical appendices. All participants gave their consent to participate in the studies. All data and code necessary to replicate the results of this paper will be made available on the Open Science Framework.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/09620214.2024.2318316

Notes

1. We also estimated fixed effect models to assess the influence of the weighing (Technical Appendix: Figure A.1). The fixed effects analysis revealed the same patterns as the random effects models.

2. Respondents with a migrant background did not have scores for the ethnocentrism scales and thus no corresponding etas.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Stichting P&V Verzekeringen [Project: Connecting You(th)]; Stichting P&V Verzekeringen [Project: Connecting You(th].

Notes on contributors

Bram Spruyt

Bram Spruyt is associate professor of sociology at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His main research interests include public opinion research, the sociology of education, and youth research. More specifically he is interested in the social identity processes associated with (the reproduction of) social inequalities.

Filip Van Droogenbroeck

Filip Van Droogenbroeck is assistant professor of data analytics at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His main research interests focus on the sociology of youth, statistical analysis and the analysis of complex databases.