Vulnerability of Students in Times of the Corona Pandemic:Is Social Inequality in Higher Education Increasing?

在冠状病毒大流行期间，学生的社会和经济状况发生了巨大变化。这就提出了一个问题，即过去几十年来在增加多样性和减少社会不平等方面取得的成就是否已经消失。由于接触限制，冠状病毒大流行恶化了学生及其家长的经济状况。此外，学生的教学和学习情况也发生了变化，因为学生必须通过数字平台学习课程和参加考试。此外，学生的社会支持情况发生了变化，与其他学生和教师互动以及从家庭成员那里获得支持的可能性减少了。与此相关的是，危机导致了更高水平的学习压力。虽然我们知道这一点，但我们缺乏关于不同弱势或社会弱势学生群体的特定学习条件、挑战和学习成功后果（预期学习进度和辍学）的信息。因此，我们的项目研究了学习进度和辍学意愿方面的社会不平等程度，以及社会不平等在冠状病毒大流行期间如何变化。我们研究学生群体之间和内部的社会不平等，不仅基于学生的性别和教育背景，而且还基于其他弱势群体的特征，即有移民背景的学生，儿童和残疾人。我们系统地检查了研究条件，（经济状况、教与学状况、社会支持状况、压力状况）及其与学习进展和辍学意向的相关性。采用横断面和纵向设计估计线性和非线性分解模型，我们还解开了通过考虑（变化中的）学习条件（构成效应），研究学习进展和辍学意图中的社会不平等（变化）。此外，我们弄清楚是否改变学习条件有不同的影响学习进度和辍学的弱势学生群体的意图（交互作用）。我们的分析是基于一个量身定制的，德国范围内的数据集，其中包含的变量和情况下，需要执行设想的亚组分析。我们通过合并两个已有的数据集（Studieren zu Zeiten der Corona-Panamere和2009 - 2016年的Sozialerhebungen）获得了这个数据集。我们的结果将为教育和社会分层研究提供新的理论和经验见解，以了解危机情况下社会不平等如何演变。它们还将使我们能够制定急需的政策建议，有针对性地支持不同的学生群体，这些学生群体在冠状病毒大流行期间有可能推迟学习进度和辍学。这有助于消除德国高等教育和社会中长期存在的社会不平等。

During the Corona pandemic, the social and economic conditions of students have drastically changed. This raises the question of whether the achievements of the past decades in terms of increasing diversity and decreasing social inequalities have been scotched.Due to contact restrictions, the Corona pandemic has worsened the financial situation of students and their parents. Also, the teaching and learning situation of students has transformed, as students had to follow courses and take exams via digital platforms. Moreover, students social support situation has altered in that possibilities to interact with other students and teachers and receive support from family members were reduced. Relatedly, the crisis has induced higher levels of study stress. While this is known, we lack information on the Corona-specific study conditions, challenges, and consequences for study success (expected study progress and student dropout) of different vulnerable or socially disadvantaged student groups.Therefore, our project examines the extent of social inequalities in study progress and dropout intention, and how social inequalities have changed during the Corona pandemic. We study social inequalities between and within student groups not only based on students’ gender and educational background, but also based on characteristics identifying other vulnerable groups, i.e. students with migration background, children, and disabilities. We systematically examine the study conditions (financial situation, teaching and learning situation, social support situation, stress situation) of these student groups and their relevance for study progress and dropout intentions.Estimating linear and non-linear decomposition models using both cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, we additionally disentangle the underlying mechanisms of (changes in) social inequality in study progress and the dropout intention by considering (changing) study conditions (composition effects). Furthermore, we figure out whether changing study conditions have differently impacted study progress and the dropout intention of the vulnerable student groups (interaction effects).Our analyses are based on a tailor-made, Germany-wide dataset containing the variables and case numbers needed to perform the envisaged subgroup analyses. We obtain this dataset by merging two already available datasets (Studieren zu Zeiten der Corona-Pandemie, and the pooled Sozialerhebungen of the years 2009 to 2016).Our results will provide new theoretical and empirical insights for educational and social stratification research on how social inequalities evolve in a crisis situation. They will also allow us to formulate much-needed policy recommendations for targeted support of different student groups at risk of delaying their study progress and of dropping out of higher education in times of the Corona pandemic. This can help counteract long-lasting social inequalities in German higher education and society.