Inequalities in educational decisions by migration background - the role of of information availability

该项目调查了信息的可获得性对德国有和没有移民背景的父母在从小学过渡到中学的决策行为的作用。虽然许多研究表明，在控制学校成绩和社会出身时，有移民背景的父母的教育决定更有利，但其原因尚未得到全面理解。该项目的目的是通过将几个理论模型的假设结合起来，通过信息的可用性，以综合的方法进行决策，从而更全面地了解信息可用性的个人、决策相关方面以及具有移民背景的父母的教育决策的解释机制。研究问题是：根据父母的移民背景，他们的信息可获得性有哪些差异，如何解释这些差异？信息可得性通过哪些机制影响教育决策？社会影响机制是否随着信息量的减少而变得重要，从而对解释有移民背景的父母的教育决定做出了额外的贡献？为了回答这些研究问题，本项目探讨了移民和非移民父母之间的信息可用性和教育决策的差异，并探讨了这些差异的解释。有了这些数据，一方面，就有可能调查有和没有移民背景的父母在获得信息方面的差异是否可以用家庭拥有不同的社会和文化资源来解释。另一方面，这些数据可以用来研究父母的信息可用性影响他们的教育决策的机制。一方面，关于学校成绩和过渡标准、学校教育年限或个人学位对劳动力市场的重要性的歪曲信息会影响父母的主观看法，从而影响他们对个人选择的评价。另一方面，信息的缺乏增加了决策的不确定性，从而增加了对社会环境中“正确”决策的线索的取向。因此，社会影响在决策过程中变得越来越重要。

The project investigates the role of information availability for the decision-making behaviour of parents with and without a migration background at the transition from primary to secondary school in Germany. While numerous studies show more favourable educational decisions of parents with a migration background when controlling for school performance and social origin, the reasons for this have not yet been comprehensively understood. The aim of the project is to offer more comprehensive insights into the explanatory mechanisms of individual, decision-relevant aspects of information availability as well as the educational decisions of parents with an immigrant background by combining the assumptions of several theoretical models to decision making in an integrative approach through the availability of information.The research questions are: What are the differences in parents' information availability according to their migration background, and how can they be explained? Through which mechanisms does information availability influence educational decisions? Do social influence mechanisms gain importance with decreasing informedness and thus make an additional contribution to explaining the educational decisions of parents with an immigrant background? To answer these research questions, this project examines differences in information availability and educational decisions between immigrant and nonimmigrant parents and explores explanations for these differences.The data basis is Starting Cohort 2 of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). With these data, for one thing, it is possible to investigate whether differences in the availability of information of parents with and without a migration background can be explained by a different endowment of families with social and cultural resources. For another, the data can be used to examine the mechanisms through which parents' information availability influences their educational decisions. On the one hand, distorted information about school performance and transition criteria, length of schooling, or the importance of individual degrees for the labour market can influence parents' subjective perceptions and thus their evaluation of individual alternatives. On the other hand, a lack of information increases the decision's uncertainty and thus, the orientation towards cues from the social environment for a "correct" decision. As a result, social influences gain importance in the decision-making process.