Peter Robert

Differences in Scholastic Achievement of Public, Private Government-Dependent, and Private Independent Schools: A Cross-National Analysis

The gross differences in scholastic achievement among public, private government-dependent, and private independent schools in 22 countries are analyzed with Programme for International Student Assessment 2000 data. In a multilevel approach, the authors estimate these sector effects, controlling for sociological characteristics of students and parents, school composition, teaching and learning conditions of schools, and students and principals perception of the climate of their schools. The main explanation of their gross differences in scholastic achievement is the better social composition of private schools, both government dependent and independent. But pupils at private government-dependent schools have a higher net educational achievement than do comparable pupils at public schools with the same social composition. The explanation of these remaining net differences in scholastic achievement seems to be their better school climate. These net differences in scholastic achievement between public and private school sectors are equal across nations, despite historical differences of educational systems.

School Choice in the Light of the Effectiveness Differences of Various Types of Public and Private Schools in 19 OECD Countries

ABSTRACT The paper approaches the issue of school choice in an indirect manner by investigating the effectiveness of public, private government-dependent and private independent schools in 19 Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development countries selected from the PISA 2000 survey for this purpose. In a multilevel approach we estimate these sector effects, controlling for sociological characteristics of students and parents, school composition, teaching and learning conditions of schools and students, and principals perception of the climate of their schools. The main explanation of the gross differences in mathematical achievement is the better social composition of private schools, both government-dependent and independent, which is a clear consequence of school choice. But our analysis also reveals that private independent schools are less effective than public schools with the same students, parents, and social composition, while private dependent schools are more effective than comparable public schools. The explanation of these remaining net differences in mathematical achievement seems to be the better school climate of private dependent schools. The comparison concludes that these net differences in mathematical achievement between public and private school sectors are equal across nations, despite the historical and legal variations in their educational systems and school choice approaches.

Bivariate and multivariate scaled association models. An application to homogamy of social origin and education in Hungary between 1930 and 1979

In this article we compare bivariate and multivariate models for homogamy of social origin and education to test whether bivariate models of homogamy lead to biased results. We use data on Hungarian couples married between 1930 and 1979 and loglinear models of scaled association. The results indicate some differences between bivariate and multivariate analyses. At each point of time bivariate models overestimate homogamy, both with respect to education and social origin. However, results on trends in time do not differ much between the two analyses. The exception is the period 1940–1959, in which bivariate analysis showed decreasing educational homogamy, and multivariate analysis showed an increasing trend. The latter finding can be explained by declining homogamy of social origin, as well as the weaker reproduction and cross-effects in this period.

Has educational sector any impact on school effectiveness in Hungary? A comparison of the public and the newly established religious grammar schools

The aim of the paper is to test whether the pupils of religious gymnasiums in Hungary have higher grades and a better opportunity to enter vocational college or university than comparable pupils of public gymnasiums have. For the first time the effectiveness of public and religious schools is compared in one of the former communist societies. Data are from a self-administered survey among 4th grade secondary school students in spring of 1998. Our results show clearly that pupils at religious gymnasiums in Hungary get higher grades and that they have more success in entering tertiary education and university. This is especially true for pupils at Catholic gymnasiums but there are clear indications that the Calvinist and Lutheran gymnasiums might catch up Catholic gymnasiums in the near future, if they get the time to develop themselves. A more selective social composition of these schools, higher earlier school achievements or a higher academic ambition of religious pupils cannot explain these better results of pupils in religious gymnasiums. We conclude from these results that the religious grammar schools in a post-communist country like Hungary are on average more effective than public grammar schools. This does not hold only for Catholic schools but also for Protestant schools, just as in other European societies.

Social origin, school choice, and student performance

The paper defines education markets based on the major divisions in the school system like public–private, tracking either by curriculum or by ability, and schools practice regarding admittance of students. These segments in the school system create a “market”, put the schools into various positions in the educational “field”, and parents consider these options when deciding about school choice. Furthermore, schools position in the market has an impact on students performance even if controlled for school composition. This paper analyzes 23 OECD countries from the PISA 2006 survey. The results indicate that high-status families prefer more selective schools with the exception of ability tracking. Moreover, the more selective schools perform better, but ability grouping does not improve achievement. Applying interaction terms shows that religious schools are able to compensate the disadvantages of pupils coming from low-status families at most.

Changes in status attainment in Hungary between 1910 and 1989: Trendless fluctuation or systematic change?

This article addresses the effects of economic and political change on social mobility in Hungary between 1910 and 1989 by investigating whether the effects of family background on schooling and the effects of family background and schooling on first occupation vary between periods in Hungarys twentieth-century history. For this purpose, we distinguish five periods: the long-lasting Depression (1910 to 1933), the period around the Second World War (1934 to 1948), the long 1950s (1949 to 1967), the period of reform socialism (1968 to 1982), and the decline of socialism (1983 to 1989). Using large-scale datasets from 1973, 1983, 1992 and 1993, we are able to investigate developments in the parameters of the status attainment model for about 75,000 men and women. We use spline regressions to find out whether trends in the effects vary between periods. Linear secular trends in the effects of family background and schooling do not predominate; spline models reveal discontinuities between periods. On the other hand, a trend from ascription to achievement both for men and women can be observed. In contrast to the general assumption, the most important deviation from the general trend has taken place in the years before the communist take-over.

The Influence of Educational Segregation on Educational Achievement

The chapter investigates the impact of homogeneous vs. heterogeneous grouping of students with respect to their social origin on the differences in educational achievement. There are two competing hypotheses in this respect: heterogeneous grouping increases students’ educational outcomes, or homogeneous grouping is the proper solution for improving students’ achievement. Further hypotheses refer to the conventional beliefs that (a) students with underprivileged parental background benefit from being in heterogeneous schools, or (b) students with privileged parental background perform worse in integrated schools. The chapter uses the PISA 2003 data for investigating the consequences of these various possibilities in structural settings.

Mapping the Post-communist Class Structure: Findings from a New Multidimensional Hungarian Class Survey

In this article, we define a schema for the class structure of Hungary, in which we consider a case for an Eastern-European capitalist system emerging from post-communist societies. Our schema is based on the findings of the Hungarian Class Survey, 2014. Using six measures of Bourdieusian economic, cultural, and social capital and applying the methodology of latent class analysis (LCA), we have constructed a model of eight LCA-based classes: upper class, cultural middle class, affluent middle class, young urban consumers, network-embedded rural workers, young drifters, middle-aged deprived, and the precariat. Hungarian society seems to be quite hierarchical but is also fragmented within the upper and lower strata. Status inconsistency in terms of possessing economic, cultural, and social capital is strongly present even for the middle classes. There is a clear divide in our class model between the upper four and the lower four classes, in terms of vertical and nonvertical aspects of social stratification. We also compare our new multidimensional class typology to the traditional occupation-based one and demonstrate its added value for class analysis in Hungary.

Youth, Precarious Employment and Political Participation in Hungary

Young Europeans’ political responses to the economic crisis have neither been uniform nor overly promising for the future of democratic Europe. We seek to identify potential causal relationships between young peoples’ employment status and choice of political participation (i.e. both traditional and non-traditional forms of political participation, as well as emerging alternatives). Although politicians and academics highlight that young people are increasingly disengaged from conventional politics, and papers have been published about different aspects of this topic, young peoples’ perspectives and generational differences are rarely taken into account simultaneously. In this paper we characterize the consequences of the economic and employment conditions of youth on political engagement. Our paper focuses on Hungary, which has struggled with youth unemployment. The paper involves secondary data analysis of cross-national surveys, involving six datasets (2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2015) from the European Social Survey (ESS). Results indicate that greater involvement and responsibility in the workplace increase political participation, whereas the impact of the other labour market indicators (unemployment, work flexibility) on political participation is not straightforward.