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In Germany, inequalities in the labor market are strongly tied to social origin by way of educational degrees: Children from higher social origins moreoften choose a traditional pathway that leads to a formal university entrance exam and with it to the highest returns in the labor market. The following paper focusses on the status attainment of nontraditional alumni in Germany, who first completed their vocational training and then entered higher education with an occupational qualification but without holding a university entrance certificate. By this pathway, inequalities can be lessened if nontraditionals attain the same status as traditionals. Estimated random-effect models on data of 155 nontraditionals and 1,881 traditionals of the National Education Panel Study (NEPS) show, that over 15 years after graduating, nontraditionals attain a lower occupational status (SES) in comparison to traditionals. Referring on social reproduction and social position theory, these results are explained for nontraditionals of lower social origins by a desire for status maintenance of the SES attained before their studies and for nontraditionals of higher social origins by a failed reproducation of parental status. Both motives lead to a lower SES attainment than that of the traditionals who successfully reproducte the parental SES by their graduate degree. The findings show that although alternative route to an educational degree lessen educational inequalities, inequalities do not disappear but manifest in the labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic training can be regarded as the key qualification in contemporary knowledge societies. Against this background, public debate has repeatedly highlighted two problems of the German system: first, a comparatively small proportion of the population attaining higher education and second, a relatively high degree of social selectivity in education, not least among university graduates where children from lower classes are highly underrepresented. Graduating from university is, however, just the final step of an extended educational career. Sociological transition research has revealed that final educational attainment must be understood as the result of a sequence of successive decisions. So where on the long way to the university degree does Germany 'lose' its potential academics and in particular its lower-class children?This paper presents a detailed picture of the life-course development of educational careers by reconstructing the various steps of the collective educational history of a particular birth cohort. The paper takes account of both the country-specific institutional structures of the educational system and inter-individual variation in educational trajectories and combines both aspects in an analysis of the most relevant types of educational transitions associated with the 'academic track'. Altogether, the transitions aggregate to the final number of graduates as well as to the observed amount of inequality in educational attainment. In our empirical analyses, we are interested in both the overall selection at particular transitions and social differences in these transition patterns. We use survey data from various sources on participation and social selectivity in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to test the usability of MyLA (My Learning Analytics), an application for students at two German universities: The Cooperative State University Mannheim and University of Mannheim. The participating universities focus on the support of personalized and self-regulated learning. MyLA collects data such as learning behavior and strategies as well as personality traits. This paper presents the findings of a usability test of the web app prototype. A total of 105 students from both universities participated in the study. In addition to a quantitative usability survey, the app navigation and design was evaluated through an eye tracking investigation with seven participants. The findings indicate that the MyLA prototype is easy to use but requires slight modifications concerning the app design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conference paper "The Scandinavian Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) education at Vestfold University College" is presented. The paper will be presented at the 12th Biennial Conference of the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication on July 29 to August 5, 2006 in Dusseldorf, Germany. It discusses programs and courses offered by the Norwegian college and highlights the Habilitation Center at the Vestfold County Hospital.

As academic education was free of charge for decades, tuition fees were introduced at German universities in 2006. However not all German Lander settled the law and implemented tuition fees at the respective universities. From research perspective this is a nice natural experiment, as the cost structure for the educational decision of individuals going to university experienced a more or less exogenous induced variation. According to RAT-theories of educational decision and empirical findings cost arguments should yield strong impact on class related educational decisions. From this perspective a quasi exogenous variation could be used to test the effect of the cost argument on class specific educational decision. New retrospective survey data for Germany (ALWA) are used to model the educational decision of upper secondary school graduates (Abiturienten) in Germany, choosing a university study instead of a vocational training. The data allow to analyze the class related educational decision, controlling for both the regional variation of introducing tuition fees in 2006 to 2007 and to compare decisions made under tuition fees with decisions made a) before introduction of fees and b) in German regions still without tuition fees. The research hypothesis is, the introduction of tuition fees affected the educational decision going to universities and decreased especially the proportion of students from working class background going to university. Difference in differences analyses confirm strong class related effects of tuition fees for German graduates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]