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The international migration of students has garnered a lot of attention from researchers due to its growing popularity and significance. However, the current state of research in this field is limited. On one hand, there is a scarcity of high-quality, large-scale data, and existing studies primarily focus on students who are already abroad. On the other hand, the field predominantly revolves around Bourdieusian-inspired arguments that narrowly view international education as a strategic investment by parents and a means of perpetuating social advantage. This article addresses these limitations by utilizing nationally representative survey data from China, the largest single source of international students globally. Our findings challenge the existing literature by revealing that parental aspirations to send their children abroad are more widespread across diverse social backgrounds than previously suggested. Furthermore, we observe that exposure to transnational environments amplifies aspirations for international education across various parental backgrounds and mitigates differences in aspirations based on parental education levels. We argue that these empirical patterns reflect the global standardization and diffusion of models and ideals of self, of which international education has increasingly become a part within the context of the transnationalization of higher education itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a matter of debate whether free school choice should lead to higher or lower levels of school segregation. We investigate how school choice opportunities affect school segregation utilizing geocoded Swedish population register data with information on 13 cohorts of ninth graders. We find that local school choice opportunities strongly affect the sorting of students across schools based on the parents' country of birth and level of education. An increase in the number of local schools leads to higher levels of local segregation net of stable area characteristics, and time-varying controls for population structure and local residential segregation. In particular, the local presence of private voucher schools pushes school segregation upwards. The segregating impact of school choice opportunities is notably stronger in 'native' areas with high portions of highly educated parents, and in areas with low residential segregation. Our results point to the importance of embedding individual actors in relevant opportunity structures for understanding segregation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although research into emotions has flourished in second language (L2) / foreign language (FL) learning in recent decades, few attempts have been made to examine learners as clusters based on their emotional profiles. The current study set out to first investigate the nature of 98 Grade-4-to-5 English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ emotional profiles, as represented by classroom anxiety, boredom, and enjoyment. The hierarchical clustering analysis revealed three distinct profiles: Negative Emotion (NE; 21.43%), High Enjoyment (HE; 46.93%), and high in both Enjoyment and Anxiety (EA; 31.63%). We then analysed FL motivation and family background (household income and parental education) between the three groups. We also compared the FL proficiency levels (listening, reading, speaking, and writing) between the three groups from three perspectives: baseline scores (T1), scores one year later (T2), and growth (from T1 to T2). Multiple significant differences were found. The most common pattern was HE demonstrated higher scores than NE (e.g. in various aspects of language proficiency). EA also had higher scores than NE in some areas. HE and EA were largely similar, the only significant difference being HE having higher listening and speaking motivation than EA did. Interestingly, no significant differences were found in family background between the three groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate social inequalities based on social background in the choice of the academic track among equally performing students, and how indicators derived from the rational choice framework contribute to account for such inequalities. We discuss the main theoretical concepts underpinning rational choice theory as applied to educational decisions: perceived costs, benefits, and risks of failure; relative risk aversion; and time-discounting preferences. In the empirical section, we use a unique dataset concerning the transition to different tracks in upper secondary school in a large Southern Italian region. By using various regression methods and the Karlson/Holm/Breen decomposition technique, we show that social inequalities in access to the academic track are considerable, even in recent cohorts, and that they are largely not explained by previous academic performance. Indicators linked to key concepts proposed by the rational choice theory—as measured in this study—account, as a whole, for 31% of the gap based on parental education, and for 40% of the gap based on parental occupation. The most important sources of inequalities among those this study examines are the expected benefits associated with the educational alternatives and the time-discounting preferences, while relative risk aversion and the perceived chances of success play negligible roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article aims to cover a gap in research, including an ethnic dimension to explore the relationship between people's trajectories and their experiences at university. Drawing on a retrospective life-story approach, the article compares how 55 respondents of different social origins recount both their routes to university and their experiences at university. By adopting an intersectional lens of analysis, we argue that differential experiences at university affect people's trajectories of social mobility. Data from two qualitative studies are analysed in this article to explore how class and ethnic background, but also people's location in urban or rural areas and other aspects of their family situation, affected their educational routes to earning a university place. We argue for the subjective experience of social mobility as a process of achievement, but one fraught with numerous obstacles and challenges. This article shows that respondents from working-class social backgrounds encounter different barriers because of the lack of socioeconomic resources, previous educational disadvantages, class/ethnic discrimination, and family cultural background. Meanwhile, respondents from middle-class and upper-class backgrounds have to face different issues related to their families' expectations of maintaining their social status. Based on those findings, we suggest that research on social mobility needs to consider multiple and intersectional dimensions that frame an individual's life trajectories, instead of focusing on movements between fixed educational or occupational positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers whether degree apprenticeships could disrupt traditional university routes to professional careers and redress longstanding inequalities in access between individuals from different social backgrounds. Using the solicitors' profession as a pertinent case, issues of access and choice are explored, utilising Breen and Goldthorpe's theory of Relative Risk Aversion to understand variation across social background. Drawing on 23 in-depth interviews with law students, trainee solicitors and solicitor degree apprentices from four universities and five law firms across England, the analysis illuminates the decision-making approaches of aspiring solicitors through both the university and the degree apprenticeship routes. Contrary to expectation, the degree apprenticeship route appears to be discounted as unfamiliar and risky by many of those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Instead, it is tactically adopted as an alternative by some middle-class students. As such, the degree apprenticeship is not likely to disrupt existing patterns of access to the solicitors' profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides new knowledge on the social background of women involved in indoor prostitution by integrating a novel data source in terms of administrative register data. Questions concerning dynamics of entry and whether sex-sellers have a more socially marginalised position than others have long been debated in research. Based on register data on 1128 female sex-sellers, the article takes an important step towards answering such questions by analysing and comparing the social background of sex-sellers and of a matched sample of Danish women (n = 73,320). The study includes descriptive insights into a number of indicators, including demographics, out-of-home placement, mental health problems, drug problems, incarceration, educational attainment and labour market attachment. Multivariate regression models are used to examine potential predictors of involvement in prostitution. The findings show that indoor sex-sellers often come from a socially marginalised background and experience multiple social vulnerabilities in both childhood and adulthood. Furthermore, the study shows strong associations between indicators of social vulnerability and selling sex. Especially indicators of an unstable childhood environment (e.g. out-of-home placements and mothers' incarceration) and indicators of social marginalisation in adulthood (e.g. incarceration and mental health problems) have proven to have a strong association with involvement in prostitution as an adult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political involvement differs according to youngsters’ social background, but the role of students’ own educational pathways in that social gradient is less clear. We investigate whether track position and the school composition mediate and/or moderate the social gradient in the development of students’ political involvement. Examining schools in Ghent (Flanders, Belgium), Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) and Bergen (Norway) – we investigate whether these determinants for change in political engagement during upper secondary education differ between educational systems. Results from multilevel conditional change models show that the role of social background in changes in political involvement matters across the studied educational systems, but the role of track and school composition varies. In Barcelona, all the impact from social background on the increase in political involvement can be accounted for by track position, whereas in the Flemish system, the increase in political involvement is higher among those in academic tracks if they have low social background rather than high. There is more variance between schools in Ghent, and ethnic school concentration is associated with a smaller increase in political involvement there. The Norwegian system has little between-school variance and small differences between tracks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]