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

在科罗纳大流行期间，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：过去几十年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付诸东流。由于接触限制，日冕疫情恶化了学生及其家长的经济状况。此外，学生的教和学情况也发生了变化，学生们不得不通过数字平台学习课程和参加考试。此外，学生的社会支持状况也发生了变化，与其他学生和老师互动以及接受家庭成员支持的可能性减少。与此相关的是，这场危机导致了更高水平的学习压力。虽然这一点是已知的，但我们缺乏关于不同弱势或社会弱势学生群体学习成功的特定研究条件、挑战和后果(预期研究进展和学生辍学)的信息。因此，我们的项目调查了学习进展和辍学意向方面的社会不平等程度，以及社会不平等在CORON大流行期间发生了怎样的变化。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，而且基于识别其他弱势群体的特征，即有移民背景的学生、儿童和残疾。我们系统地考察了这些学生群体的学习状况(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，并通过横截面和纵向设计估计了线性和非线性分解模型，通过考虑(变化的)学习条件(成分效应)，进一步理清了社会不平等在学习进展中的变化和辍学意向的潜在机制。此外，我们还计算出不断变化的学习条件是否对学习进度和弱势学生群体的辍学意愿产生了不同的影响(交互影响)。我们的分析基于一个定制的、全德国范围的数据集，其中包含执行设想的子群体分析所需的变量和病例数量。我们通过合并两个现有的数据集(Studieren zu Zeiten der Corona-Pandemie和2009至2016年的集合Sozilarhebungen)获得这个数据集。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，以了解社会不平等在危机情况下是如何演变的。它们还将使我们能够制定急需的政策建议，以便有针对性地支持不同的学生群体，这些学生群体有可能推迟他们的学习进度，并在冠状病毒流行时期退出高等教育。这有助于抵消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.