Dr. Jan Skopek

Summary

The project ISOTIS - Inclusive Education and Social Support to Tackle Inequalities in Society - funded by the European Commission (H2020) is a research consortium of 17 partner institutions across Europe collaboratively studying educational inequality between social and ethnic groups within European countries. ISOTIS will inform best practice in strategies for inclusive education. Jan Skopek is leading Working Package 1 "Inequality in various stages of the educational career: patterns and mechanisms". Major research activities involve (1) a comparative assessment of social and ethnic inequality in educational opportunity across European countries, (2) a longitudinal assessment of the roots and development of skill gaps among children in selected European countries, and (3) the effectiveness of institutional reforms aiming to reduce achievement gaps among children.

Funding Agency

Europan Commission

Programme

H2020

Project Type

Research project

Person Months

29

Summary

In today's increasingly diverse societies one of the key questions is how to foster the structural integration of immigrants. Education is one of the main prerequisites for social and economic integration. It is a critical resource for economic and societal progress and a crucial factor structuring socio-economic outcomes and life chances of individuals. Thus, endowing children with a migration background with equal chances to succeed in school will facilitate their integration into broader society. Research shows that migrant educational underachievement is a serious issue. Yet, relatively little is known about when, how and why migrant gaps develop in children's educational careers. Studies that investigate these questions using longitudinal data are scarce, particularly in the European context. Moreover, while some studies have tentatively suggested that early inclusion in the educational system might be beneficial for children with a migrant background, there are no studies systematically examining the effects of preschool attendance on the performance of immigrant children over time. The current research sets out to answer these questions. More specifically, the central goal of the project is to better understand, from a longitudinal perspective, when and how migrant gaps in educational outcomes arise during the early life course and what role preschool education plays in this. In particular, the projects sets out to establish whether preschool attendance can work as an equalizer for children with a migration background. To this end, longitudinal data on child development from the Republic of Ireland will be exploited. PhD: Stefanie Sprong.

Funding Agency

Irish Research Council

Programme

Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship Programme

Summary

This project proposes a comprehensive longitudinal investigation of the division of labor in older couples. It addresses a major gap of knowledge, as previous research has focused almost exclusively on how younger couples negotiate their division of market and domestic work throughout earlier periods of married life. Extending the analytical scope to older couples is particularly worthwhile, as both theory and empirical evidence suggest that the division of labor - and the associated gender inequalities - might shift substantially in later life. Most importantly, two critical life transitions of this period - grandparenthood and retirement - represent turning points that may instigate processes of adaptation and renegotiation of the previous division of labor in older couples. Consequently, the proposed research will trace older couples over extended periods of time to explore how, why, and under which conditions grandparenthood and retirement affect their arrangements of market and domestic work. The analyses will draw on comprehensive longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), the German Aging Survey (DEAS), the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), and the Panel Analysis of Intimate Relationships and Family Dynamics (pairfam). The investigation will be informed by life course, solidarity, and social network perspectives as well as established theories of the division of labor. In tying these frameworks together and extending them to the study of later life and older couples, the project will yield important contributions both at the theoretical and at the empirical level. The project is hosted at the Institute of Family Research at the University of Bamberg (Germany). Funding generously granted by the German Research Foundation amounts to 178,300 Euro.

Funding Agency

German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft)

Project Type

Research Grant

Summary

Studying inequality in educational opportunities has a long tradition in sociology, and many social researchers have argued that education has become the key variable in social stratification. Over the last decades, modern societies have become characterized as knowledge-based economies in which the role of education and its organization in institutions have important consequences for educational participation in all phases of the life course. Nowadays, education may be seen as a lifelong process in which individuals acquire skills and competencies in formal and non-formal learning settings not only in school but also before school and afterwards throughout the entire life-span. The objective of the eduLIFE project was to study how the educational careers of individuals unfold over the entire life course in different societies and to relate this to family background, educational institutions, job careers, workplaces, and private life events. The project adopted an explicit life-course perspective, utilized comparative research designs, and exploited most suitable cross-sectional and longitudinal datasets for studying educational processes in modern societies. To analyse education as a lifelong process, the project was structured into four phases, each focusing on a specific, very sensitive stage of the educational career: (1) Childcare, Early Education and Social Inequality, (2) Models of Secondary Education and Social Inequality, (3) Gender, Education and the School-to-work Transition, (4) Adult Learning. Reputed scholars from a large cross-national network have contributed comparable country-specific analyses to the eduLIFE project. Findings of the project are published in four volumes. The project (P.I. Hans-Peter Blossfeld) was hosted at the University of Bamberg (Germany) and the European University Institute (Florence, Italy). Funding was generously granted by the ERC.

Funding Agency

European Research Council

Summary

The project "The internet as a partner market: Analyzing the early phase of meeting and mating using data from online dating" (German: Das Internet als Partnermarkt: Analysen der frühen Phasen des Kennenlernens auf Basis von Daten aus dem Online-Dating) was hosted at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Economics of the University at Bamberg. The projects' objective was a study of the early phases of assortative mating based on data collected in the social context of online dating. Contrasting most previous sociological studies on assortative mating have been investigating search outcomes like consensual unions or married couples, the project conceptualized and studied mate choice as a process involving initial conditions and evolution of romantic interaction among men and women. In theoretical terms, the research was informed by social exchange theory, search theory and family economics, symbolic interactionists approaches, and relational sociology. Empirically the project drew upon big data collected unobtrusively collected from online user trans- and interactions as well as an additional survey data which has been collected via an online panel. The research strategy adopted mixed-method methodology including quantitative but also qualitative research designs. Funding generously granted by the German Research Foundation amounted to 225,810 Euro.

Funding Agency

German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft)

Project Type

Research Grant